The Last of The Legendary Few

This is the story of the last legendary cloak I will be getting and the extremely hard time I had deciding on which cloak to take. There is a lot of history behind the choosing of which cloak to take and of course this post shares some commentary on how the game has played out for this character over the last 6 or so years I have played it.  So continue at your own risk. ;)

The last character I will get the legendary cloak on this expansion, being the quest line is going to be removed from the game,  is my shaman who managed to snag their cloak this week at long last.  One of the first characters I actually started the quest on ended up being the last I got it on.

My shaman started her life simple enough when her space ship, broken and beaten, settled down on Azeroth.  She was a fighter and knowing that this would end up being her home for the forseeable future she stepped out into the world swinging a mace, having a gritty attitude and a milkshake that seems to being all the boys to the yard.

She was an enhancement shaman, that is all she ever was.  She leveled with a companion, a warlock I refereed to the game.  It was fun leveling because of the refer a friend boost and summon.  Not to mention leveling with someone was a nice change of pace because I had always leveled solo otherwise.  This character was always about fun and I had fun leveling it and had fun playing it.  It wasn't until well into wrath that she saw max level and entered the end game gearing process.  She geared as enhancement, that was who she was, a fighter, a melee brawler, one that liked to be in the middle of things, if shaman could tank, she would.

I always loved playing enhancement.  There was a little dead zone in the rotation and as a hunter main I was not used to that.  There was almost always something my hunter could do and I liked that style of game play.  I tried other melee and none of them tickled my fancy, to much waiting on things, too many dead zones, slow and boring, but shaman melee was the closest thing to enjoyable melee if you asked me.

When cataclysm came out I leveled as enhancement, geared as enhancement, and was ready to raid as enhancement, but with the change to healing and the guild basically losing all of its healers on or near launch, if I wanted to raid I had to do something about that.

I grabbed a few pieces of green healing gear from quests I had not finished yet, got a few pieces of crafted gear, a few others off the auction house and a PvP piece or two and went to my trainer and learned dual spec.  This character never had it, she never needed it.  She was a melee DPS, that is all she ever was and that is all she would ever be.  Or that was what I had hoped.

I set up my healing addon for shaman healing and went to the net to read a few guides and blogs for more advanced ideas on how best to handle many different healing situations.  There really has never been a good place to learn how to heal so I had to jump into a dungeon and the dungeons at the start of cataclysm were no laughing matter in a pug.  Not even in the slightest.  I've downed heroic raid bosses with fewer wipes than cataclysm heroic bosses in a pug.

I am not really sure if deadmines was the first dungeon I healed but it is the first dungeon I remember healing.  Perhaps it was the first one or maybe it was because of how the run was that stood out in my mind.  Maybe it was because of the nightmare stories that anyone that had played in those early pugs will tell you that bring that one to the forefront of my mind. 

I recall being on vent with a couple of guild members that together randomed into it.  They had wiped multiple times on bosses and on trash packs and I listened to them every step of the way until I had to leave and attend to some of that pesky real life stuff.  When I came back online some four hours or so later they were in the deadmines.  I laughed and said, I can't believe you did not drop that instantly after your last time in there only to be told it was the same dungeon they were in when I left.  When they finally finished it they had went thorough over 17 healers as I recall them saying and easily twice as many damage dealers.  It took the over 6 hours to complete.  A dungeon.  6 hours???

So maybe deadmines was not my first run, but for whatever reason it might be, the deadmines stands out in my mind as the first thing I ever recall healing on my shaman and my story was nothing like their story.  Perhaps I got lucky, most likely that would be the reason, but my group went well.  We never wiped all the way up to ripsnarl where we hit our first bump in the road.  The DPS was just not enough to handle it.  We cycled through a few damage dealers and suffered a few more wipes, but me, the tank, and the top DPS stayed there the whole time though the 3 or 4 wipes we suffered while trying to find two more decent damage dealers.

Once we managed to snag some people that were not incompetent, even if that is a strong word for it as these dungeons were brutal and even a competent player could fail if they did not know what to do, we downed ripsnarl and the rest of the dungeon with no incident.  One of the people from that 6 hour run said to me on vent, as I was commenting during the whole run, that it sounds like I did a fantastic job healing it and maybe if any of their 17 healers would have been okay it would not have been so hard for them.  And so a shaman healer was born.

As the expansion went on I would heal more than I would DPS but I still had the occasion to do damage which my shaman always welcomed because that is who she really was, a damage dealer, but I learned to love shaman healing.  When the Zuls came out and they were nightmare runs just like, but not as bad as, the original on release heroic dungeons, I really started to come into my own.  I would say I could heal anyone to a timed run, just keep pulling, I will keep you up, and I did.  I got so many random pugs their bears. 

I started to become a real healer with her during that time.  I loved the fact I could CC as a shaman, I could interrupt as a shaman, I had various cooldowns, big heals, and wolf form to get to, or get away, nice and quickly.  The zuls are what convinced me that shaman healers were, without a doubt in my mind, the best healer for small group content in the game.  I think learning in the release cataclysm dungeons made me a good healer on her.  I was not tainted by the end of wrath over gearing everything infinite mana world.  I learned to heal when mana mattered, choices mattered, and I think that is why I was so good at my shaman healer.  That, and they really seemed OP if you ask me.

Thanks to the very good gearing system in cataclysm, one of the few nice things I can say I liked about it, that not only offered valor gear but the ability to do your 7 "bonus" dungeons in one day instead of one a day over the course of a week, my shaman would cap every single week and was able to keep both her healing set and her DPS set up to par.  Perhaps not as much as I would have liked because not all slots were offered with valor, but enough that I could hold my own in any content thanks to that.  That stage of gearing had to be one of the best designs in the history of the game in my opinion and I still have no clue why they moved away from it in mists and then took it way further and just removed valor and the gear connected to it.  Two incredibly bad decisions in my mind.  But either way, cataclysm become the expansion where my shaman healer was born and I learned to love to heal with it.

When mists came out of course I was quick to level my shaman.  I loved healing with it now and it was my favorite class to DPS on, at least in regards to melee DPS.  I leveled as enhancement and tried to pick up some quest rewards to start my healing set as I did so.  When I reached max level I had a respectable quest geared DPS spec and a mix and match healing one, not horrible but in no way ready to roll.

Then the mist lock out system destroyed me.  I had started the legendary quest line already but I really could not do anything otherwise.  If I geared for enhancement so I could managed to get the quests done faster so I could open up the vendors that would allow me to spend my valor my healing set would fall behind.  Added to the fact we needed a healer so I had to heal the raids and then hope for someone not to need the gear I would need for enhancement.  I was caught in a catch 22 because of the stupid gating of valor gear.  I could not keep both sets up like I did in cataclysm.  I needed to choose one and stick with it.

Being I was needed as a healer and at least healer queue times for dungeons and LFR were really good, I figured I would go as a healer.  This meant only healing gear with the extremely rare dungeon piece no one needed, but they still yelled at me if I needed on it when no one else did for some strange reason.  Hey, if no one needs it I need it for my offspec.  My offspec is more important than you getting some enchanting materials.  Well, it is to me at least.  I got the occasional piece from a raid on the rare moments I came in to heal when needed but my enhancement set was falling woefully behind.

With a full valor bar and no factions opened to spend it on I was kind of screwed.  Stupid quests could get me gear I really needed, but I could not do them in a reasonable time frame for an alt because all I had was this healing gear and really crappy leveling gear with few other pieces for enhancement.

I know I should have made the switch earlier but I really did not want to.  I knew what needed to be done.  I went to my trainer and dropped my enhancement spec and picked up an elemental one.  This was completely against my will.  It was the first time my shaman would not be enhancement since she was created. 

It was not because I wanted to change, it was because of the horrible design blizzard had for the start of the expansion that left me with no option for an alt.  If my shaman had been my main and I spent more time on it then it would have been no big deal but as an alt I really did not want to be sitting there opening all the vendors yet again.  Never understood why that was not account wide.  Once I opened them on my hunter they should have been open for all my characters, but that is another story all together.

So now my shaman was able to quest, albeit at a very decreased capacity because all that spirit from my healing gear converted over to hit when I went to elemental.  So I was walking around with an ungodly amount of hit rating, but at least I could quest once more and did not need a second set of gear to do so.  It might not have been great gear, but at least I could quest as elemental in my healing gear where I could not quest as enhancement in my healing gear.  I didn't like it, not at all, but if I wanted to heal and not spend more time on the character than I should have to for an alt, I needed to be elemental, like it or not.

I moved along a little bit here and there in the legendary quest line from the occasional drops I would get from kills I was in on in the raid or the occasional LFR I did, but it was still moving really slow.  The valor collection part nearly killed me, and really did, for a very long time.  I could not gain valor because I had nothing to spend valor on, because I never opened the factions.  So if I could not spend it, I could not gain it, and I was stuck.

Eventually I used the reputation tokens from the warbringers to get some reputation and spend some valor so I could continue along with the quest.  I was then left with needing to do the battlegrounds which, if you were alliance, is not a very fun thought, not at all.  It felt like every single horde in the worlds sole purpose in life was to cut my tail off.  So faced with the idea of doing that and looking at my priest who was already well along the quest line and soon to have the cloak, my shaman was left abandoned.

No longer was I enhancement because I had to drop it for gearing reasons.  I never really was elemental because I used my restoration gear when I DPSed and even at that I would never consider DPSing in a raid with that gear, it was for questing purposes only.  I was just a healer.  I healer that had been left behind because I was a healer.  This is how my shaman, who was one of the first three or four characters to start the legendary quest line ended up being the 12th to get it.  She was put on the back burner.

Not so long ago I decided to start it back up and managed to win the PvP games rather quickly, for an alliance player that is.  I used to PvP as a healer in cataclysm, so I had some experience with it, but I had no gear and as usual I was put into groups that did not understand the basics like move as a team, fight in the objectives, protect your healer and your healer will protect you, you know, the things that actually win battlegrounds.  Took me only 3 tries in the temple to get a win but it took 7 to get the mines which actually is not so bad.  It is amazing what we can get used to as acceptable isn't it?  Losing 7 out of 8 games should not be acceptable but for this, it is.

I was in the middle of the secrets when they announced that they would be removing the legendary quest line when 6.0 came out and removing it from peoples quest books if they did not completely it once warlords came out.  So I figured, this was always one of my most liked characters to play, I might as well get it finished off even if I was not really using it much if at all this expansion.

While I still have a few characters on various stages of the quest line I do not have the impulse to try and finish it on any more of them.  Maybe another priest, if it happens by accident, but I will not try.  It just happens to be the one furthest along of all my other characters left doing it.

My shaman had gotten left behind, but thanks to ordos and the celestial bosses it was not entirely without gear.  Sitting at a 541 item level doing the healing challenge was anything but a challenge but I must admit it was still fun to do even if I was never in jeopardy of failing it.

Then after I was done the question came to mind, the question this post is all about, what cloak should I get?

I can afford to buy extra cloaks, but with me not really using this character for anything lately and having no intention to in the next 5 weeks, I would not waste gold on a second cloak.  So instead I need to choose which cloak would be best for me.  While the decision turned out to be an easy one, the process to make it made me a little depressed with how things turned out of this character.

The most logical choice of cloak for my shaman healer would be the healing cloak of course but as I only ever healed shaman, for the transmog, and thok, when we needed a third healer, this character does not really need gear for Siege as it does not really do it and I do not intend to do so in the next few weeks.

I have to think of the future for this character, I have to think of warlords and what I will need for leveling.  This means no healer cloak for my shaman.  She will not be leveling as a healer so what the heck use would a healing cloak be.

I thought about getting the agility one for a while.  I would really love to switch back to my original spec.  With all the timeless gear getting a start on an enhancement spec should not really be a problem.  I got a couple of maces off the brew boss, all the timeless pieces, a second trinket from the shado-pan which I believe is being changed to gold once 6.0 launches, heck, all of that 522 gear if I so wanted to, and I would have a more than ample set of enhancement gear for leveling.  Heck, I might even win an ordos piece or two and something off the celestial bosses.  If I run the LFR or a flex I could gear up as enhancement for warlords leveling if I wanted to thanks to being able to choose what spec you get loot for now.

It would be one hell of a collection of gear from here, there and everywhere, but it would be okay for leveling and we are going to be replacing everything as soon as we hit 100 anyway.  All it would take is a little time being put into my shaman for the next few weeks.  Even if I went just with timeless gear, which would be considerable less of a time investment, it would be fine as the starting quests in warlords give 500ish gear.

I really thought deep about going back to enhancement, I really wanted to, but in the end I went with what was simpler.  Just like I did the entire expansion on my shaman.  I decided on the caster cloak.  When 6.0 comes and all that spirit on main gear pieces is gone and so is hit  so all that will not be so many lost stats as it is now when I switch to elemental and have 76% hit rating, which is effectively is 61% useless stats.  Sure I will still have lame rings, trinkets, neck but I will have the legendary back which is pretty awesome.  For anyone not on the beta, let me put it this way, the legendary cloak, on any character at least LFR geared, can and will solo mobs up until 92 or 93.  So it is a great leveling tool.

So in the end I decided on taking a cloak for elemental because I already have some decent gear for that spec and that will be my best leveling spec.  But somehow I am sad because of all of this.  Enhancement was my favorite shaman spec and the only melee spec I ever really enjoyed or was any good at.  Shaman healing is something I really like and I wish I had started it sooner, or played it more this expansion because I enjoy it and it always feels powerful.  Elemental is an after thought.  Something I do not enjoy playing or feel comfortable doing so.  Kind of odd how that works.  For the sake of ease I end up being the one spec I like least.  Makes me wonder what spec I will end up using in warlords?

I decided on efficiency over entertainment and I am not sitting comfortable with that decision right now.  Sure, 7K can fix it, but it is the thought process I worry about.  How I view the game must have changed in recent years if being efficient is more important than enjoying myself.  Makes me wonder.

The Little Differences

I healed two ZA runs yesterday on my shaman.  Both got done with little incident and only one wipe between them.  It was the little differences however that made one run a real effort which tested everything I ever learned as a healer and the other run a standard heal as you go run.

First run, as we will call it, consisted of a tank that was geared and gemmed correctly.  That is important because a stamina stacking tank in a Zul is going to die a horrible death every move they make.  The three DPS where 17K, 13K and 8K.  There were two forms of easy CC to use.

Second run, because after naming one first run the other only makes sense to be called that, consisted of a tank geared and gemmed correctly as well.  The three DPS where 15K, 14K and 12K with two forms of CC that could be used as well.

As you will notice the two groups where basically the same based on appearance.  Both had tanks geared for it.  Both had roughly the same DPS.  Both groups had CC that could be used.  Both groups had me healing.  Lets just assume for a moment that I remained me for both runs meaning the healer had the same skills and abilities in each run.

The first run was exciting.  I needed to use my whole tool box.  Once in a while it is nice to test yourself as a healer and this surely tested me.  The second run was one of those average runs where there were few moments that got iffy.

Now lets look at the little differences and see what made one group hard and one easy even if they basically seemed like the same groups on paper.

The walk up to the eagle boss:

The first group, even with decent if not over powering DPS, somehow found a way to turn this into an adventure.  Everyone was taking damage from everywhere. Three times adds came up from behind.  I almost lost the tank once and the one melee DPS in the group another.  I didn't but there were moments of panic there for sure. 

I had to use all my mana cooldowns and natures swiftness which is a rarity for 98% of trash pulls because there is usually never a moment where the tank is going to go down and needs that huge heal now and not in 2.33 seconds.

The last pull with the big guy on the stairs came just as birds and adds came in before the two guys in front of him where down.  This left us with him, the two mobs, the two adds and all the birds and me at effectively 0 mana.  No cooldowns left for anything, mana pot used, I even crossed my fingers and prayed hoping that might help because I was sure as hell not going to do much.

At this moment, as any healer will tell you, it is a keep the tank up moment.  That is about all you can do.  If and when you regen enough you can throw out one of the least costly heals to which ever one of the DPS seems to taking the least damage.  The reason being is that it will most likely mean that it is going to end with just you, the tank and one DPS up and you would rather the one DPS that will be taking the least damage to make your life easier.

All said and done the run up the hill took all my mana and a lot of praying along with 7 minutes off the timer.  It tested everything I ever learned as a healer and even seemed to invent a few new ones.  As all miracles would have it, no one died but when we finished the other 2 DPS where so low if I sneezed on them they would be dead.

The second group, basically same DPS, had no issues.  We moved through there super fast.  Only one set of adds ever came from behind, only two sets of bird where ever released.  I was using what seemed like no mana what so ever and actually started to help DPS some.  Riptide, heal, shock, nova, riptide, heal, shock, nova, etc.  We got to the boss in no time at all, everything died cleanly, none of the DPS took any substantial damage and I had 90% mana still when we got to the top.

The little differences.  Second group might have had a more capable tank in rounding them up.  The second group had the DPS that knew to target the same target instead of all choosing different targets which in effect make everything take longer to go down.  The DPS played aggro magnet by only attacking ones the tank had little or no aggro built up on.  It was indeed a group failure.  The tank or the DPS could have stepped it up and did things better and it would have been easier.  The little things made the difference.

The eagle boss:

The first group did a reasonable job at this, even if it took longer then it should have.  The reason being is that they always took to long to switch to the add.  I have a habit of throwing a frost shock on the bird the second it comes down.  Helps out some.  The first few times I did that and it looked like I was the only damage on it.  The last few times, I was so busy catching up on healing I could not shock it.  We did it, no wipe, but it was really work.

The second group, again doing roughly the same damage over all, had one small blip.  The boomkin stole aggro from the tank the second the bird was being called meaning the tank got picked up.  One huge difference was, by the time I threw a frost shock on the bird it was almost dead.  This group switched instantly.  The tank landed, took aggro back, everything was fine.  This group always switched to the bird quickly, lightning quick even.  So much so, it was not even worth me changing targets to frost shock it, it was not needed.

The little differences here where that the DPS knew to switch to the add and did it in a timely manner.

The packs on the way to bear:

The first group played this as if they where great.  They were not.  They used no CC and tried to grab everything at once at the bottom of the stairs and on the platform.  I kept everyone alive but it was not pretty.  Death was knocking on everyone's door the whole time.  Of course, everyone was on different targets so it took forever for things to go down and they where all taking damage they shouldn't be.

I was out of mana on that pull, the next pull, the platform pull, even the boss which is a joke to heal normally and I still ran out of mana on it somehow.

The second group did it right.  They CCed on the fly, the targeted the same targets, they did not take unnecessary damage.  We moved from that pack to the bears to the platform mobs and to the boss one after the other in an effort of constant motion, I never fell below 70% mana even with the chain pulling.

The little differences here was the use of CC turning what might be slightly difficult pulls into mundane kill order kills.  Over all it made for a much faster run.

I wonder why some people think CC slows things down?  If anything the use of CC made this much faster because their was a more obvious kill order. Not to mention, I did not need to go hog wild on my spells trying to save everyone meaning no need for me to mana up after every pull like with group one.  CC makes things faster when you are not in a group with everyone focus firing and doing 18K+.

Long story short: (too late)

The first group continued their run the way they were.  No CC, ever.  I started to hex for my own sanity and it seemed as if it offended the tank when I did so.   He went after the hexed target even if it were in a safe place where it would have not bothered anyone until everything else was down.  It was as if CCing something was a way of me telling him, target that next.

The entire run I ended up using 20 mage cakes and 6 waters I had.  I burned more cooldowns then I could have imagined I would ever need in a 5 man.  I was even using everything I had on trash pulls.  I got to the point I was using mana tide totem on every cooldown even if I was at 90% mana because I knew I would be burning mana like there was no tomorrow and some trash pulls where taking so long it might be off cooldown for a second use.

The second group continued their way of CCing, focus firing, positioning, etc to make things a rather smooth run.  Oddly enough, this group was the one that had the one wipe.  Perhaps because they were doing everything by the book so when something went wrong it took them by surprise and wiped us.  I kept up with the hell the other group put me through but I could not keep this one up.  Oh well, it happens.  With this group I only needed to drink three times and all three of them where might as well fill up drinks and not because I was in desperate need of drinking.

The little differences where in the DPS for the most part in my opinion.  They did not target as a group.  Even if the tank does not mark the DPS have to be smart enough to target the one the tank is on or at least the one everyone else is on so it goes down faster. 

The problem with CC is a combined failure in my opinion.  The tank could have marked.  The DPS could have asked for which one they needed to CC.  The DPS could have CCed on the fly like I did.  Anyone could have noticed that I was OOM every pull or that I was CCing to try and help me keep them up.  I could have spoken up myself and refused to heal until they started using CC.  We where all at fault there.

I think the reason I did not say anything is because it was not unhealable.  It was a crap ton of work for sure.  It was stressful at moments.  It was not unhealable however.  If it where, I would have demanded CC.  I like the wake up call once in a while to show me that healing can actually be work.  The sad part is, if the people knew how to play, healing is never actually work.  It is bad play that makes healing hard, not healing in and of itself.

The little differences between these two groups could not be seen on paper.  On paper the two groups where nearly identical yet the runs where two completely different journeys.  While both where finished without any wipefests the first group was indeed an adventure in every sense of the word and the second was a walk in the park.

Little things, very little things, could have turned group one into group two.  One mage sheep here.  One skull marker there.  One target for everyone at the same time.  One second waiting before attacking.  That, and simple things like that, is all they needed.  A few little things and the first group becomes the second group.

Sometimes it is not a huge adjustment that is needed.  Sometimes it is just a collection of the little things that can change the entire flow of a dungeon.

Next time you are in a dungeon and it is going like group one did do not automatically chalk it up to them being a bad group.  Chalk it up to them not noticing that something as small as one sheep can turn hard into easy.  It was not because someone was doing only 8K that there was a problem.  It was because they did not do the little things that there was a problem. 

Many people seem to forget about the little things because they are so little.  They seem to forget that little things matter sometimes more then the big things.  One little adjustment can sometimes turn a wipe into an easy fight.  If only someone noticed it.

Miss Medicina's healing questionnaire revisited

Excerpt stolen from Shintar over at Priest With A Cause:

Remember Miss Medicina's healing questionnaire from about two years ago? No? Well, either way, Saunder from Non-Squishy Heals would like to revive it, and he asked me to fill it in as well. Why not, I thought, the game has changed quite a bit since then and it should be interesting to see whether my answers to the questions have changed as well compared to last time. So, without further ado:

Now to me filling it out.

1) What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
- I don't share names, but she is a restoration shaman.

2) What is your primary group healing environment?
- As an alt she gets more use in healing 5 mans to help DPS with queue time but is a raid healer in 10 man when we need one.

3) What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
- Riptide.  It is a nice little heal itself but the haste buff to the next two heals are nice and quick after it.  It is more then just itself.  I like spells like that.

4) What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
- The spirit link totem.  Quite honestly I have yet to see a need to use it.  So much so, I changed my spec back to not have it so I can use that point someplace else where it could be of more use to me.  It does seem like it will be very useful when you are pushing raid progression for server firsts and everyone does not have perfect gear yet but my guild does not move that fast.  We are usually over geared for each boss by the time we pass it.

5) What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
- Raid healing in a 25 man or any group up fight.  BH, Chim, etc.  Shaman healers are great when everyone is close together.

6) What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
- No instant heals with zero cooldown.  We are really up shits creek when there is a heavy movement fight and a few people need some patchwork done.  Natures Swiftness and Spiritwalkers Grace are both fine cooldowns but with a 2 minute cooldown each they are not exactly something you can use often or even depend on being available when you need it and neither one solves the problem of having no instant heal without a cooldown.

7) In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
- Raid healing, no doubt.  There will always be people grouped up enough for healing rain and chain heal to go from a decent spell to a very good spell.

8) What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
- Druids.  They bandage the wounds and I do the stitches.

9) What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
- Hard to say.  Class means nothing.  The skill of the player behind the class is what makes the class easy or hard to heal with.  Also the time you play with them makes it easy or hard.  I always have a hard time healing with someone I've never healed with before and had an easy time healing with someone I healed with before.  It is about knowing the person.  What class they play really means nothing.

10) What is your worst habit as a healer?
- I sometimes forget about healing myself.  I think that happens to us all.

11) What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
- You want one?  Sorry, can't do that.  Maybe I can if I sum it up into one big ball and call it bad players.  Tanks still stacking stamina.  Melee DPS that will still attack from behind even if there is fire there.  Ranged DPS that see things flying at them and don't move.  People that do not use cooldowns when it will save them thinking instead that I will always save them.  I can go on, but I do not think I need to.  Bad players sums it up.

12) Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
- Absolutely.  While I do wish I had an instant with no cooldown even if it was a crappy heal I have to say that over all Shaman healers are in a decent place.  I've been able to do things on my shaman I can not do on my priest and I have a lot more experience on my priest.

13) What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
- If you are looking for numbers go talk to a the damage dealers.  I do not care if I do 7K HPS or 70K HPS.  I do not care if I did 2% over healing or 90% over healing.  When the fight is over I ask myself a few questions.  Is the boss dead?  Is everyone alive?  Do I still have mana left?  If the answer to all these is yes then I did a good job.  You can look at numbers to improve your effectiveness and that is fine but no matter how much you improve your effectiveness you can not end a fight in a better position then having a dead boss, all players alive and still having mana left. 

14) What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
- I think most people think of shaman as a weak healing class but they can hold their own.

15) What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
- Spell selection.  Could also be called mana management.  When starting you will over heal a lot because of fear of people dying.  This will run you out of mana quickly and mean when you need the big heal for real you will not be able to cast it.  Choosing the right spell for the job is the hardest thing to learn.

16) If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
- Over healing for sure. Healing stream totem starts over healing the second I put it down and usually will continue to do so the entire fight.  Ticks from healing rain once someone is max will also ring up those over healing numbers.  They might also see a low healing output because the more I use the character the better I am becoming at healing when healing is needed and choosing the lesser spell most of the time if I know that no additional damage is coming later.  This will lead to a lower HPS but it saves my mana for when I need it so I do not mind.

17) Haste or Crit and why?
- I have a love affair with haste.  I've played with the same group with different levels of haste doing the same content.  Having a cast time .2 faster seems to make a huge difference.  .2 seconds can turn a hard fight into an easy one sometimes.  Critical however is starting to peak its head out because everyone likes big numbers and seeing 75K-80K heals now is pretty darn fun.

18) What healing class do you feel you understand least?
- Paladin.  My healing experience as a paladin leaves something to be desired.

19) What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
- I use healbot but not for all clicks like many do.  It is just there for some simple stuff, my dispel, riptide, and my small heal for example.  All my spells are in mouse over macros.  I could just as easily use the in game raid frames and never miss a beat.  You would not even notice I do not have a healing addon if I did that.  I can not live without my mouse over macros.

20) Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
- I stack to meet certain haste plateaus based on theory crafting but if I feel a tiny bit more haste makes me more comfortable I will still add it.  Being comfortable with your healing means you heal better.  So if I go for 1% more haste then recommended it is not because I do not know what I am doing, it is because that is what makes me feel comfortable.  In the end, you will notice the difference if you run with me and I am not comfortable with the speed my heals are going off at.

Resto Shaman: King of the 5 Man

The job of a healer is a very simple concept.  Heal the people taking damage.  All healers have the capability of doing that and all can do it well, so what exactly could set one healing class ahead of the others?

For that we need to look at the three biggest things you can do while healing.  At least the three ones people like to point out.

Direct Healing:
All healing classes are capable of doing this.  As a healer you heal. As a healer you have heals.  Nothing to see here really.

Midigation:
Keeping people from taking damage to begin with.  Disc Priests are the king when it comes to this one aspect of the game.  They can mitigate damage on the fly better then anyone else, but an earth shield is no laughing matter either.

Movement:
Movement is something that you only control your own but it is a huge aspect of healing.  Some healers have more movement ability then others but when it comes to movement as a part of healing it is more the movement of others that matter.  If they move from the bad stuff your healing job is easier, if not, it is harder.  You, sadly, have no control of other peoples movement.

What sets a Shaman above all other classes when it comes to healing a 5 man dungeon is that their healing tools extend way past healing.

Lets take a quick look of all the little things that a shaman healer can bring to the table in a 5 man that other healers can not.  While they also bring these things to a raid it is often not as noticeable because it is not as needed but when it comes to a 5 man with pug people you know you will never have ideal players that know what they are doing.  That is why the tools that are in the Shamans toolbox brings them to a whole new level when it comes to healing.

Wind Shear:
The single most powerful healing spell in a 5 man dungeon.  It is also something only a Shaman healer can do. If it where this alone it would be enough to make the Shaman the king of the 5 man. But is not a healing spell you say.  Sure it is, it is a huge healing spell, you are just not thinking of things correctly.

Take a spell like Whispers of Hethiss, it does some serious damage.  It could take a good two or three large heals to heal the damage it caused.  If you wind shear it instantly it does no, or limited, damage. 

This saves you mana and the stress of trying to save someone.  By stopping the spell you are stopping someone from getting hit for 50 or 60K worth of damage.  Interrupting that spell is effectively a 60K heal for less then one quarter of the cost of a greater healing wave.  Not to mention, it lowers your threat to boot. 

Just looking at the math of it, a 60K heal (interrupt) for 8% base mana as opposed to a greater healing wave that might, if you get lucky, crit for 50K, for 33% base mana.  Without a doubt, wind shear is your most cost effective heal as a shaman and quite possibly the most cost effective heal in the game over all.

Argue as you might that it is not the healers job to interrupt but you'll have to agree that it is the healers job to keep everyone alive.  If no one else is interrupting, then it is in fact the healers job to interrupt.  My last 3 times healing that boss I am the only one that has ever interrupted that spell because in 5 mans you need to remember most people will be really stupid and I can not heal stupid, but I can do their job for them and make my job easier in the process.

Bind Elemental / Hex:
The second thing that a shaman healer has that no other healer has is the ability to CC on the fly.  They can not CC everything but a large section of things.  Just like interrupting a spell is in effect a heal, CCing is also in effect a heal.

Many pulls there ends up being that stray caster that seems to love the healer.  If the healer has to start spamming heals on themselves, you know things are going to go bad, fast.  A simple 1.5 second cast for 8% base mana can quite possibly take care of your problem.  Better to CC it then try to heal through it or hope that a pug tank will even notice that their healer is being ripped apart.

Sure, it can miss being it requires hit rating but it sure as hell is a better option to try when no one else is doing anything.  That is pure mitigation.  A mob that does no damage means no damage to heal.

Totems:
Lets just forget that a Shaman can bring a whole slew of buffs to your group and being it is a 5 man it is most likely that some of those buffs will be needed.  There are other totems that have huge uses.

Earthbind Totem: Slow a stray mob giving the person it is following more time to get away and the tank more time to pick it up.  This helps limit the amount you need to heal.

Grounding Totem:  Let it take that next big spell instead of you limiting the amount you need to heal.

Tremor Totem:  Everyone just got feared, not any more, and in some cases this could be the difference between a wipe and survival.

Stoneclaw Totem:  Stray mob after you, let it go after your totem while you get away, again, lowering the amount you need to heal.

Fire Elemental Totem: Burn phase?  Help DPS.  Dead mobs do no damage.

Earth Elemental Totem:  Tank goes down, instant tank to the rescue.  Better then your Mage tanking.

Searing Totem / Magma Totem: Might as well help with adds.  Dead mobs do not damage.

As you see, many totems are in effect, healing totems but helping you have to heal less.

Shocks:
Shocks can play a huge part in making your job as a healer easier. 

Frost Shock:  Shock an add in GB giving DPS more time to get it down by slowing it. 

Earth Shock:  It lowers attack speed, does anyone actively remember that?  It can be very helpful.

Flame Shock:  Followed up by a Nova and you can do AoE too.  The faster mobs go down the less you have to heal after all right?

Ghost Wolf:
You might not think of this as a healing spell either but I have had it save my butt more often then I can count.  Lame tank not getting adds?  Wolf out and bring the adds to him.  You move faster, avoiding damage, thus requiring less healing.  Ghost Wolf can be a healing spell too.

Last but not least... Heroism:
Okay, not a healing spell in any way shape or forum right?  Well, not exactly.  The faster a group gets a mob down the less damage it is alive to do.  If something can go down even 15 seconds faster that is 15 seconds less healing you need to do.  You can use heroism to help your team at times when it is needed or use it to help yourself when you know your mana is starting to run low.

In the world of 5 man dungeons with pug people the Shaman reigns supreme.  They have more tools then any other healer, more control then any other healer, and is made to handle nearly every situation in the game. 

Sure, if you are running with DPS and a tank that can interrupt you do not need to.  If you are running with people that know how to CC you will not need to.  If you are running with people that had decent DPS you would not need to worry about things taking to long to go down.  But you are not running with any of those people, you are in a pug.  If you are a Shaman, at least you can do it all yourself.

Tinkering With My Game Play

Tinkering with the Hunter

I did some tinkering with my Hunter to try and fix the bug (yes, it is a bug and I don't care if blizzard wants to call it a change) that is keeping us from auto targeting. 

I was using a start attack macro I had seen suggested around the forums.  It had two problems.  It was making me lose time between shots for some reason and it was starting the attack, who would have guessed.  This led me to make myself a marco that would work and I would feel comfortable with.

#showtooltip Multi-Shot
/cast Multi-Shot
/targetenemy [noexists,noharm,dead]

Note:  Change Multi-Shot with any shot you want to use this for.

I'll explain how this is working for me.

First line is showing you the tooltip for the shot.
Second line is trying to shoot the shot. (if there is no target it won't.)
Third line will find a target for you if you do not currently have one, the one you have is friendly or the one you have is dead.

Why did I put the shot before the target?  So it works just like it used to.  The way auto target used to work was if you did not have a target and pressed an ability it would target something.  You would need to hit it again to do it.  Just like it was.

This macro does that.  It targets something but does not do anything.  This gives you time to react and tab to another target should it choose a target you do not want to attack.  Just like it was.  Good hunters will work with it, bad hunters will hit the wrong target.  Again, just like it was.

Protip: If you where hitting the wrong target before do not use this macro.  First learn not to spam keys, if you spam you will go right back to hitting the wrong target with this and maybe tabbing, while slower, is better for you.

All the macros I have seen would be something like start attack and then the cast line.  What the hell, are these people crazy?  They want to make an entire generation of horrible hunters, that is worse then it was before.  Doing it that way selects a target and then fires a shot all at once.  What if it landed on the wrong target?  You would have no time to switch targets.  Bad marco is bad.  Do not use it.  If you plan to use it, change it to the cast line first and the start attack second.  This will make sure it does not fire a shot.

Changing over from the suggested start attack macros I went back to not pulling, not breaking CC and my DPS went back up 4K.  All good things wouldn't you say?  Feel free to use or adapt the little macro above for your own uses.

Tinkering with the Shaman

I haven't done any tinkering with my shaman but I think I am going to need to.  Tinkering not with macros and such but tinkering with where I stand and the things I do.

I entered the queue for a Zul heroic by accident.  Personally I think I need a little more experience before I do them.  I figured, what the hell, I'll try it being I am here but I did not expect much from what I heard about the healing nightmares that they can be.

To my surprise I did quite well at least at the start.  We went around counter clockwise starting at the poison guy.  All three DPS died with about 20% life left but the tank and I finished it off and I never had any mana issues.  Mind you, in my own defense, it was not my fault the three DPS died, they died because they stepped in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It happens.

The run went smooth from there but we had a wipe on the archeology boss being it was a different one from the ones any of us there had seen before.  We downed it the next time.  Again, not a healing issue.  He has a charge that if he hits people with it one shot them.  So make a note that the lightning guy has a charge and it can be dodged, you have enough time to react.

So far so good, feeling good about my healing.  I was doing much better then I would have ever expected.  We continue to cruise to the second to last boss with the three cauldrons and that is where life goes down hill.  A quick run up until that point.  Two and a half hours after that, we still did not finish it.

This is where I think I need to do some tinkering.  I need to work on where I stand in fights with adds like that one and the last one.  Some of the wipes where to the tank not moving in time from the stuff he shoots on the ground and going down faster then I could heal him.  Some where to that happening to other people, heck, I even got hit by it twice in out attempts. Some where to the big guy not going down fast enough and then ripping us all to shreds.

The biggest problem was whenever the zombies where summoned they would all come for me.  Oh crap.  I tinkered a little bit on where I was standing.  When I saw which batch of zombies where going to rise up I would stand between the tank and them so they needed to pass the tank before getting to me.  Didn't seem to make much of a difference, they would get to me and eat me up.

I got to the point where if you can't beat them, join them.  When they came up, I got the fire, and I started working on mowing them down.  One problem with this, I was not able to effectively heal like that.  That idea did not last long because they took me out fast.  Damn it, I wear mail, I have over 53% damage reduction, how the hell do they kill me in a matter of 2 seconds.

Long story short, about one hour and forty five minutes later we downed him and moved to the last boss.  Different battle, same problem.  All the adds where coming for me instantly.  I even moved from their spawn points being you can see where they would be coming from and it did not help.  I was not having mana issues, I was healing everyone just fine.  As soon as I started getting attacked and had to run, people started falling low and soon started just falling dead.

I need to find something I can do to stop adds from thinking of me as the best thing since sliced bread.  I think I did fantastic healing that instance. A lot better then I would have ever thought I would.  Those two fights however, I failed on and I failed on them hard. 

I need to learn to position myself better maybe.  Or learn how much I can take so I do not start running too soon and can still heal.  Each attempt was either me trying to heal too long and getting killed by the adds or me trying to get away from the adds and people dying because I could not heal them.  Either way, I hit my brick wall as a healer there.  I do not think I could have done any better with my current skill set.  I'll just have to get better and maybe tinker a little bit with where I stand and how I handle myself when I have adds on me.

I made it to the last boss, which I am happy with.  My Shaman is only a 346 item level so it is barely able to get in there and actually probably not at all, that 346 is a mix between my enhancement and my restoration gear.  It is not just my resto gear.  I did a lot better then I expected, so that is good, but it shows I still have a lot to learn.  Those last two fights could have been better for me, I could have done better.

Admittedly we did not have very good DPS in there over all but my mana was fine and there is no enrage timer I am aware of, we should have been able to do it. 

I need to tinker how I play to figure out how to heal and move with adds following me.  I did not do that part of play well at all.  Hey, we all have to learn somewhere right?

End note

So I tinkered with my Hunters shots and fixed the screw up blizzard made with auto targeting and am back to my old self DPS wise and I need to tinker a bit on the mechanics of how I heal in heavy add fights.  Tinkering is not just for engineers.  Everyone tinkers with their game play, at least if they really care about getting better at doing it.

Shammy Time

Okay, my Shaman has now reached the level where I am going to have to start looking at doing things in less of a haphazardly way.

Normally, for most of my characters I do not worry about enchants, gems, etc until I reach a self set threshold.  For this expansion it is item level 346.  Before that I do not really care if I enchant my gear or gem it or reforge it within reason.  Even at lower level gear I made sure to reach my first shaman haste marker.

Now that I only have a couple of sub 346 pieces left I have to start thinking of the big picture.  This is not much of a problem.  Enchanting and gemming is easy with 2 maxed enchanters and 2 maxed jewelcrafters.  I have over 200 rubies so even if I will replace something popping in an intellect gem is not going to set me back any.

So being gems and enchants and reforging is not an issue for me why am I even posting this?

Well, two reasons.  First is easy  I need to respec to get my spirit link totem.  I really want to play with my new toy.  I can pick up a cookie cutter spec and play with it and then refine it as need be so that is not a problem.

The second is because I do not know what I want to do with my professions.  I leveled with mining and blacksmith.  Yes, odd for a shaman but it worked for me and worked well.  However, mining serves no use to me now what so ever.  A tiny bit more life for what?

I need to find another profession to pick up and need to drop mining now if I want to be more effective.  I am not crazy into the whole min/max thing like many are but I do not like to waste space.  I have three maxed miners, the other two are tanks so it makes some sense for them.

If I were thinking of the min/max I would not be toiling over this.  Jewelcrafting here I come.  Add to that the fact that a jewelcrafter is like having a license to print money.  How do you think I ended up with 200 rubies even after selling 500 of them?  Buy ore, prospect ore, make uncommon gems, vendor them, triple my gold for my time.  It is nice to make 8K while just BSing on vent for an hour doing nothing.  To bad it is not that easy any more since they changed the sell values but it is still easy.

So if being a jewelcrafter is so gosh darn ahead of the pack as in the best min/max I could get and a constant money maker why don't I just go with that?

I plan to use this healer as my baggie healer.  That is a healer that only queue's up for the free baggie.  I am going to need something to do while I am waiting for healers to get their call to arms.

It fits with the same reason I always tell people of pure DPS to pick a gathering profession and put their wait time to good use.  I want something to do while waiting.

Mining is okay but like I said the stamina does nothing for me.  It is a great money maker for sure.  Herbalism is a great money maker as well but it really offers me nothing what so ever and quite honestly my shaman does not seem like the type that would go around picking flowers.  It does not fit her.  Skinning is just a joke really.  It is the only gathering profession you need to work for.  I like flying around looking for dots on my map while waiting in queue, I do not want to work.

So gathering professions are out.  Lets look at what else is there. 

Engineering?  If I was planning to PvP I would consider it but being I already have a maxed engineer and engineering really offers nothing special I don't thinks I'll go that way. 

Tailoring?  I have two of them already as well and they really do not offer a great bonus, at least I do not think so. 

Leather working is not even an option either.  Have a maxed one, that is all you will ever need of them. 

Alchemy!  Well here we go, we have something that might be good.  Cooldowns are always a good way to make money and the trinket is a great starting trinket.  However I already have three alchemists and the trinket is a good starter piece, we are past the starter phase.

So it is between Alchemy and Jewelcrafting.  I am leaning toward jewelcrafting because at least with that I can always do the whole buy ore, prospect ore, sell whatever it is I need to sell to make money thing while waiting for the call to arms whereas alchemy has what?  Press a button and I am done with what I can do daily to waste time.

Looks like I just talked myself into Jewelcrafting.

Or should I just keep mining and gather while waiting so one of my other jewelcrafters can do the prospecting?

That has some merit really.  I don't play DPS characters often which means I rarely wait in queue and in turn that means I have not been gathering much of anything at all not to mention both my other miners are tanks with instant queue and call to arms always there for them (not that I would do it on a tank until I get to the point I could almost solo them and having horrible players behind me won't matter).  If I ever decide to run with them I would have no time to gather being I would always go instantly.

So, I am back where I started mining or jewelcrafting.  Ahhhhh.  What's an elf to do?

I guess for now I will leave good enough as is so to speak.

Pugging for Fun and Excitement

While bored yesterday I offered to heal for a friends heroic and was pleasantly surprised at how I did.  Mind you, I was just a beginner Shaman healer not so long ago and I rarely use the character either.  The character is basically there to help people out.  I've only healed once in the past two months.

Something strange must have happened in the last two months however with Shaman healing because I know damn well that I did not get better at healing with a Shaman in two months of not playing it.  If anything, not playing it should have made me worse.

Seems like they buffed it nicely.  I had no problems what so ever.  Of course, this was with two guild members.  I still would not want to deal with a group of random people.  Never know what to expect with those people.  Just thinking about it is enough to give me nightmares.

Thus began my day, a day of pugging.  He told me, give it a try, if you go alone the luck of the draw buff should be enough to boost your healing to a whole new level that you will be able to make up for a lot of people failing.

I kept saying no, no and again no just for good measure.  Then the call to arms popped up and I thought, what the hell, what is the worst that could happen.  Lets give it a try.

My personal rules to pugging as a healer are as such.  I will now only queue if I am getting the bag.  I doubt that was what Blizzard intended, having less healers because they will sit out and wait but bad ideas usually bring out thing like that and the satchel is a bad idea.

I will give every group a good try.  I am not afraid of wiping.  I am willing to explain if someone needs it.  I will do my best to keep everyone up, within reason.  I'll chill and move with the group but be willing to drop the hammer down and take control if and when need be.  After all, no matter what tanks like to think, the group lives and dies at the whim of the healer, not the tank.  If I say wait, you wait.  That simple.

So the day started and I enter my first random.  Throne of Tides to start off, fresh run.  I always dread this one because of the hallways.  The run goes smooth, DPS sucks of course, but we never wipe and we do all bosses.  When someone said they wanted to do the one some skip the group says no problem. 

In temperament this was the perfect group.  No whiners, no complainers, no one insulting others, if every run was like this one I would do more randoms.  Like I said, it was smooth, but the DPS was horrible so it took a lot longer then it should have been.  I had no mana issues either, so it never got to the point where the bad DPS hurt me.  End of run, not counting the inflated last boss saw the tank as #1 DPS of 8K, the three DPS all had 7K.

That was not such a bad experience.  I'll try it again.  To bad the goodie bag was not available for healers.  No big deal, I'll wait.  This was just a test run for me.

Second time, the bag gets offered, I queue up and land in Lost City, second boss.  Seems like it was just after a wipe, not good at all.  One dead body was still on the floor the other three where back already.

I lost a DK on that boss that was taking more damage then the tank was.  No biggie, I revive him after the croc and we go at the boss, no one dies there.  Third boss is a one shot thing and that trash pack when you first walk through to him that I normally had problems with I had none.  I really think they buffed Shaman healers a huge amount or maybe it was just the luck of the draw buff helping.  For someone that has healed one thing in the last two months I should not be doing this well.  Unless something finally clicked in me as a player it has to be all buffs.

Last boss turns into a wipe fest.  I am healing the DK more than I am the tank.  Seems to be he is taking all sorts of crazy damage from every end.  Blowing everything I have to keep him and the tank up leaves me near empty when we hit phase two.  A wipe soon follows.  Second attempt, more of the same.  Third attempt someone asks what the problem is and I say those swirls really hurt, stay out of them.  The DK apologizes and says he turned up particle rate so he can see it.  Next attempt goes better but we just do not make it.  I oom, people start dying. 

The elemental shaman says we will never get this done and drops group, he is replaced by a warlock I believe and we down it on the next try and I still have 1/3 of my mana left when we do.  Looks like the elemental shaman and his super awesome 4K DPS is the reason we where wiping, along with the DK standing in everything.  Replace the shaman and make the DK move and it went from a hard battle we would have never finished to a cake walk.

After that I figured I've had enough so I am going to call it for randoming solo when I notice I am only 1200 away from exalted with earthen ring for my 359 boots.  Okay, you convinced me, I will do one more.

I had to wait for the bag to be offered again which took a bit.  I need to find something to do to pass the time while waiting.  Maybe I can do dailies or something.  Either way, it pops up and I enter the queue.

Seven minutes later, you can see how much healers where needed if they are offering me a bag to wait seven minutes, I get into Grim Batol and see bones all over the place, at the entrance.  This is not a good thing.  I ask where they are up to as they are running back and they say the dragon boss.  Oh joy, this is going to be fun.  Tank dropped as soon as he made it back in.  Maybe wanted to rez first before dropping group.  We get a new tank and the new tank asks if we just go to the last boss.  I say, no problem, I was here for rep anyway and joined after all the nice and easy rep is gone so the sooner we end it the quicker I can get in a new one and get some rep.

I get netted by the one trash guy and just heal myself through it, waiting for someone to come and save me.  We down that guy and everyone runs ahead.  I have to say in party, can someone break me out back here.  Damn blizzard for having caster melee weapons have no damage any more.  If I did not say anything they would have just left me there to die as they headed into the next pack.  Actually, they did almost.  The one person that came back for me was the only one, the other three charged into the next pack of four.  Did not wait for me, or even ask if I needed mana.  I ran up to save them, tank had to use lay on hands because I never made it in time, but we down them and all the other trash before the boss.

Boss time, and from past experience in doing this on my Hunter (who has never been able to do it with a pug because pugs suck) I was afraid this was not going to happen but I am always up for a challenge.  From a mana stand point this fight has always been a breeze if the adds are caught in time and do not release the whelps.  It is one of those fights that explain why I say when everything is done right healing is an easy job.

Thing is, when things are not done right it makes healing a hard job and this is a pug after all so you do not expect things to go right do you?  First time around one add releases whelps.  No biggie, just actually making me have to do something this fight.  I keep everyone up, second time, both packs release whelps, everyone is dead three seconds later.  Maybe it is a skill issue on my part but there was no way in hell I was going to keep everyone up spread out so far with that type of AoE going on.

The tank picked out what went wrong, the people where not split up right, and reassigned who goes where.  I was throwing frost shock to slow the one on the side with the least DPS and apparently no one that could slow.  The fight took forever.  Every other time I have been in there I have never seen more then three add phases, most take two, this time had five, yes five, but they did all five right and like I said, if no whelps are released it is an extremely healer friendly fight so I still ended with half mana and that is even with having to heal this one mage who seemed to refuse to get to the eye of the storm twice.  Not all that bad over all.  DPS was horrid of course, as always it seems.  Tank was 14K, the three DPS where 8K, 6K and 6K.  So that explains why it took five add phases.

I still wanted my boots so figured I am good for one more and I wait until the bag is offered.  When the offer pops up I wave my hand and yell, me me me and queue up.  I get Blackrock Caverns and wonder what this will bring.  This is an easy instance if you get people that know how to move from the beam and hard as hell if you get ones that don't.  But first thing first.  There are a pile of bones all around the first boss.  Oh crap, this does not bode well at all.  Apparently either the previous healer just gave up or they kicked them, either way, I doubt this fight could ever be considered a healer issue fight unless they really really suck so I am already of the opinion that this has to be a DPS issue.

We pull, things are going well, the DPS does look on the low side but there are no fights in here where that could be an issue unless someone starts taking avoidable damage and I need to heal two tanks effectively.  If people execute correctly this dungeon can be done with lower DPS.

First chains, we break them, one person dies.  Second chain, we break them, the other two DPS dies.  Did you know there are only two chain events?  I know that now.  No one thought to release and come back, maybe they did not realize you can on this fight, but the tank and I finished off the fight.  Yeap, just the two of us.  No other chain popped up.  Interesting, I could have sworn I've seen the chain happen more then twice before, I was mistaken however.  I knew if another chain popped we were done for so I am glad one did not.  It did explain why there were so many bodies all over the place.  DPS that can't move are a bad thing.

Thinking this does not bode well for the next fight that really needs DPS to move but thankful I have an amazing tank I know that after the second boss the tank and I could theoretically two man the rest of the instance and just take whatever help we get from the DPS while they decide to live.  One problem, tank dropped.  He probably knew what the DPS not moving means for the next fight and did not even what to try.

We get a new tank and it is one of those go go go tanks and I am on my toes trying to keep him up being he is always moving even if I am drinking or looting it doesn't make a difference.  Thing is, he is another very good tank.  Thank god for small miracles.

We assign roles for the second boss, everyone does what they are supposed to do and it should all go smooth.  This is another healing non issue fight.  Even if this fight went on for 20 minutes I would never run out of mana.  I interrupt the fears myself, just in case, one of the reasons I love being a shaman healer, bad DPS that does not interrupt, no problem, I will do it myself.  We go in and out and in and out and in and out and I start to think sooner or later, the longer this goes on, someone is going to make a mistake and it happens after the seventh or was it eight in and out and we end up wiping finally.

Now for the best part of this entire post if you made it this far you are about to be rewarded.  This one guy starts going off about how horrible everyone is, saying people with 9K gear scores should be able to do more then 5K DPS and that everyone sucks and there is no way they could do this if they are going to continue to be so horrible.  He rants about the DPS for about 5 minutes before leaving.

Punch line time:  He was the lowest DPS at 4K.  Excuse me?  Why are you ranting about horrible DPS when you where the worst of the horrible DPS?  The other two DPS where 5K and 6K with the tank at 8K.  Yes, once again the tank is leading DPS and once again there are droves of DPS all under 8K.  Where do these people even get off being in heroics?  It baffles the mind really.  In a way I agree with mr rant and rave about DPS, how the hell can people with a 350 item level be doing 5K, you should be doing 12K with your eyes closed once you get to a 350 item level.  My hunter can pull more then 5K with just auto shot.  It is sad.

Either way, we queue up for a DPS and get a replacement and surprisingly, at least to me, the other two DPS suddenly got better and moved to 8K and 9K.  Was that one person really bringing the other two down?  If so, how exactly does that happen?

We down the boss no problem, tank tries to sneak by some packs but the hunter accidentally gets to close and they come for him. The tank, on his toes it seems, comes flying over and wraps up the mobs.  It is a bit of a mess for a minute but we get them and no one dies.  Is this the same group I was just with that had horrible DPS, died to chains and yet they do everything perfect here to recover including CC on the fly, target focusing, priority killing.  Who stole my puggers and replaced them with these body snatchers.

The rest of the run goes well.  Even on the next boss with the damage buff they barely break 10K DPS but they are over 8K and once everyone is over 8K these runs become easy.  We mow down all the trash, no need for CC or anything, only used it once to recover from that mispull.  The hunter had never kited the last bosses adds but says he will give it a try and he does fantastic.  Last fight is another healers dream.  Nothing much to do there at all.  I've noticed a lot of fights really go one way or the other.  They are hell on the healer or they are easy on the healer.  There are no fights that just keep you busy and make you work.  It is one way or the other.

I go and get my boots.  From doing all that I have enough points to get myself a justice piece and a valor piece now so pick them up as well.  I bounce around to my jewelcrafter and my enchanter and make some new gems and enchants for the new items and send them to my Shaman and get everything all set up and see that there is another offer of a goodie bag.  A bit reluctant but figuring that my luck has been good I would give it a try. 

I join up and it is Stonecore.  I am standing right in front of a giant worm and see bones all around me.  I've experienced this before and it did not turn out too bad.  It is still scary to come into something like that and see a wipe fest on the first boss.  Maybe they kicked the healer, maybe the healer left.  Soon enough I will see.

We pull, things all going well, they down the shards instantly, nice work there, they move when they need to move, they switch targets when they need to.  I barely need to heal.  Then the worm goes underground and the adds pop up and all or them look to take a bite of the tasty healer.  So I drop a totem to burn them a little and run to the tank with a pack of 20 adds in tow.  When I get to him, he runs away.  I run following him, he keeps running away from me.  The tank does not try to take the adds off me, the DPS are not AoEing them down, everyone is just running from them.  The only person doing anything is me healing which means they are all coming for me, I get eaten alive.  Everyone dies soon after.

Next attempt they try discussing what went wrong, someone says that someone got hit by the worm.  I say, that is not a problem, I can heal that you just need to keep the adds off me.  I got eaten by adds.  We go again, same thing happens.  I run to the tank, the tank runs away from me.  Take the adds off of me you retard.  Wow, this is amazing.  How can anyone be that stupid.  No doubt this is one of those baggie tanks that are only a tank for the bag and he has no clue what his job is.  Come on now, even you you where a DPS or healer your whole life you know it is the tanks job to get the attention of the mobs.  How could you fail that bad.

We try one more time.  I say the same thing, keep the adds off me and we will be fine.  Once they start hitting me it will be a wipe.  We go, same thing happens, I get devoured by adds.  Someone says, lets just queue up for another one and I reply.  No thank you, in the past I would have said yes but now I only queue alone for the bag or with guild when they need a healer.

That was when I called it.  Seemed my good luck wore out its welcome.  Glad I got a few good runs in there and three new pieces of gear.  A few little things appeared to me in my four runs, well five if you want to count three wipes for nothing.

How the hell do you do 4K DPS with three stacks of luck of the draw? 
Hell, how it is even possible to do 8K only with three stacks of luck of the draw even if you are in quest greens?
A 350 items level apparently doesn't mean you have any clue how to play.
Tanks where the #1 DPS in three of the four dungeons I finished.
Either I am amazingly becoming a good healer despite healing only once in the last two months or Shaman healing has gotten a huge boost.
The luck of the draw buff does really help.
PuGs, even when they are a success still suck.
Low DPS can still turn something easy into something hard.
Low DPS also seems to make average tanks seem fantastic.

And the biggest one, I might go bag hunting on my Healer some but I still do not see myself ever wanting to tank a random.  If anything, it seems heroics are not a bad as I once remembered them.  Or maybe it is just looking at it from a different perspective.  When I DPS and my DPS is more then the tank and the other two DPS combined it is annoying thinking I have to do all the work whereas when I heal, DPS is no longer my problem, so I do not feel as if I am doing all the work.  When I heal I just do what I can do the best that I can do it.  There is no marker to work against.  It is just me.

Over all I would say it was not as horrible of an experience as I would have expected it to be.  Maybe I should try a tier two random?  Nah, not yet.  Baby steps.

I can pull 1700 DPS

Yeap, you read that right.  I can pull 1700 DPS on my level 85 Enhancement Shaman.  Not a 17 with three zeros, a 17 with two zeroes.

I walked into a heroic last night, having not used Enhancement in forever being it seems I am always the healer and I was assigned the job of DPS.  So I switched specs and was ready to go.

Did you notice something missing there?  Yeap, I forgot to switch my gear.

I noticed something was wrong right off the start when my hex missed, I don't miss, I never miss.  Oh well, lets just kill things.  WTF is wrong with my DPS?  3, 3, 3, 3, 3, Why is my Lava Lash not going off?  Oh crap, I forgot to switch gear.

It has been so long since I rolled as Enhancement that I forgot how to play, even with the right gear on it.  The last time I ran as Enhancement I was doing roughly 7K-9K in 330 item level gear.  I am at 335 now and was only doing 6K on most fights and 7K on bosses.

Now, I know they did not change Enhancement that much and I know I am capable of much more.  I've topped 11K in my 330 gear before on rare occasion.  Hell, I would never take any character into a heroic unless they can do at least 8K.  I hate people that enter heroics and can not do 8K, why would I be one of those people.

During the course of the run I started to get a bit more of a feel for things again.  Oh year, unleash elements, I forgot about that.  Crap, where the hell is my magma totem and fire nova.  I could swear they used to be 8 and 9.

I was not ready to DPS.  I was the problem I hate other people being sometimes.  I guess it was about time I had some fun in a heroic.  Let someone else do all the heavy lifting and I can be the noob for once.  You know, it was quite liberating not having to be the one that is always depended on to be the hero. 

On my Hunter I am often the last person alive.  I've soloed the last 10% of the second boss of Stonecore, soloed the last boss for 20%.  Soloed the last 40% of the red light green light boss in SFK.  Soloed trash packs that where wipes with 4 mobs still left countless times.  2 maned, with just the tank or just the healer at least a dozen bosses if not more.  In one HoO last week I did 76% of all damage on the last boss, had 64% of total damage over the entire run.  Sounds fun right?  Nope, not at all.  I hate it.  I hate people like me on my Shaman last night.  They (me) have no business being in heroics at all.

So it is back to the starting block with my Shaman.  Honestly I do not expect to queue up as a DPS often.  99% of the time it will take me as a healer, that is just the way it worked.  The only reason I got DPS last night is because there was another healer in the group from my guild so they got assigned healing duty.  That is not an excuse for my performance.

There is no excuse for ever doing as bad as I did in that heroic.  I actively feel bad when I do bad.  Does that make me a good player or does it mean I take things to serious?  I would like to think both.

I got a weapon drop off the last boss replacing a 312 weapon with a 346 one.  That will help.  Now I have a 316 weapon and a 289 trinket that need to be replaced really badly.  Then there are a couple of 325s that are not horrible and the rest is a filling out of 333s and a couple of 346 items.

Just because I roll as a healer now on my Shaman does not give me an excuse for not being the best I can be as Enhancement.  You should step up your game, not for the people around you but for yourself, if you are not pulling your weight.  Maybe if more people in the game had that same sense of responsibility in their own game play then Cataclysm would not be so hard on everyone that has to run with them.

I won't be happy until I can pull at least 4K in Enhancement spec while in Resto gear.  Let the challenge begin.  At least that way if I screw up again I can do more then double what I did now.  I call that progress.

Healed My First Heroic

I finally healed my first heroic, and then a second and a third as well.  I was very excited that I was able to do it on my Shaman as well being I just started learning how to heal on my Shaman the week before and only just started getting gear for it.

Shaman healing is easier then other healers I have tried (with all due knowledge of the fact I've never healed top level on a pally).  The ease however seems to be in direct connection to the power of the heals.  My Disc Priest, in lesser gear seems to top out at 40K crits with her big heal.  My Shaman's big heal might hit 22K in better gear.  So while the Shaman is easier it is also the most dependent on outside factors.

That basically means the DPS.  With good DPS taking no avoidable damage I have faith that my Shaman can heal anything.  As soon as DPS start to take any avoidable damage, it all does down hill from there.

My first heroic was Deadmines.  That was supposed to be the hardest of the new instances. You are kidding right?  I healed it with a group where no one that was in it ever finished it.  We wiped once because no one seemed Ready for Raiding on the first boss.  Second time we did it and everyone stayed away from the beam it was no problem.  That was our only wipe.  I guess it helped that it was a full guild run too.  Can't discount that plus at all.

I lost a few people here and there.  It happens, even more so when someone grabs aggro and does nothing about trying to lose it.  They get killed, there is not much you can say about that. 

I've been trying to impose my feelings on DPS taking less damage to fellow guild members for a while.  That is what this expansion is about.  Some get it.  Some don't.  Like a Druid in the guild has learned to use Bear when he is in trouble.  It is not perfect, but healing a bear is a lot easier then healing a cat.  When he would get aggro and stay as cat he would normally die.  Now that he switches to bear and tries to get some distance he is living a lot more.  Not to mention that a bear/cat or a cat/bear can still do some serious DPS.

The basic idea is that if DPS are smart DPS, good DPS, then healing is a breeze.  If DPS are selfish DPS then things get hard.  Any class and spec combo that has an assessable interrupt and does not use it is a bad DPS.  One of the reasons I hate survival is because it does not have an interrupt but if I am in a dungeon where one is needed I still have my MM spec to switch to and will.  Main reason for that is it makes the healers life easier which means less of a chance to wipe which in turn makes my life easier.

The reason Deamines was such a breeze is because in reality, even if everyone says how hard it is, there is nothing special about that dungeon.  It is all simple mechanics.  Move from the bad and switch to the adds and everything is nice and easy.

My second heroic was Lost City.  That was a bit harder.  Wiped on trash like three times but that is not a bad three times, that is a humorous three times.  All of them where whoops moments.  Kind of our own fault too. 

We had one whoops moment that went very well too.  Accidentally pulled a pack for 4 before CC could be applied, then moved to much to one side and 4 more joined the fight only to be joined later by another 2.  It was crazy.  I hexed on the fly so I could keep one caster that did not want to join the fun out of the fun.  Hey, you do not want to come play with the pack then you can not play, go be a frog.  The most amazing part of it was we did not wipe there.  Oh well, stranger things have happened.

The last boss was hell.  I just could not heal it.  I do not think it was a gear issue.  Most of my gear is 333s now.  One 316 and one 312 along with one 346.  So it was not a gear issue.  It was a skill issue.  On everyone part, not just mine.  We wiped like 6 or 7 times I think, hell, could have been more.  One attempt everyone did everything right.  I entered the main part of the battle at 100% mana almost.  I could have done it but during the main part no one switched to adds and the chain lightnings started ripping us up and there was no way I could keep up. 

I made the mistake of trying to interrupt the chain lightnings myself.  Not a great idea if no one is on the adds.  That made them come right after me and focus on me.  Healer with aggro and no one else seems to want = wipe.  There is really nothing else to say there.

Another time, someone was standing in the swirly thing and I made the mistake of trying to heal them hoping they would move.  They did not move, they died, it ate way to much of my mana trying to save them.  Wipe.  I could blame them for not moving but I blame me for being stupid enough to heal them. 

I have this image in my head of Winnie the Pooh tapping his head saying... think... think... think.
Then I picture my Shaman doing the exact same thing tapping her head saying... let... them... die.

After 4 wipes one of the DPS with an offspec of healing, even if not very good gear, switch to help on the heals.  The beginning part they healed mostly.  I threw my heals out as well, but only the cost effective ones.  We went into the end of the first part with me at full mana.  The other healer went oom pretty quick there being they were at one third mana to begin with entering it.  Remember, their healing gear kind of sucked and the mana cost of spells now a days is not very friendly to healer starting to gear up.  However, that took more then enough pressure off me for two reason.  I did not have to worry about keeping them up at all and I was at full mana entering that phase.  Still, DPS were not going for the adds so it started to be insanely taxing really fast.  However, being I had full mana going into and everyone entered that phase at full health it we made it.  Wow.  That was stressful.

Looking back at it however.  I think with people doing the right thing I would have been able to heal it.  Switch to adds, stay out of the swirls.  That is all people need to do and healing it would be easy.  One time, when the second healer was not helping, we made it to the second part with me at full mana before.  That time, everyone stayed out of the swirls and killed the adds.  I think I could have solo healed it that time if only people had switched to adds in the second phase.  When they did not, that is when things went out of whack.

I do love being a healer with an interrupt however.  When you notice that your DPS is not getting the job done, you can do it yourself.  Having 2 situational CCs and an interrupt is amazing for a healer.  If only the Shaman could reach the numbers my Priest could then she would rule the healing world I think.  On a side note, for fun I got kingslayer on my Priest this weekend too.  Not like you would ever catch me dead wearing that title.

I do think that Shaman healing is a bit broken.  So much so that when on my Enhancement spec if I pop a chain heal to help the healer out whenever I get my free proc it can heal for 10K per jump.  Same as my healer does.  That brings up another subject that I rage about often too.  Where the hell is the hybrid tax when my DPS spec can heal for the same that healing spec can?  Something is wrong there.  Either the DPS heals need to be toned down, which I hope not, or the healing heals need to be beefed up, which I think would be the right move.

Halls of Origination came next.  I remember my last attempt at healing this on heroic.  I could not make it past the first boss.  Not much in terms of gear difference from then to now.  Upgraded my shield from a 316 to a 346.  That is it.  The big difference is about 5 or 6 normals under my belt before doing it again.  I learned how to be a shaman healer better in that time.  One attempt and the boss was down.  Woot!.  We actually finished the instance too.  Did not do two of the bosses up top because of time issues but still finished it out.  The last bosses AoE was a little rough on me. 

The boss after all the elementals did abuse me some as well and can be thanked for 3 wipes but that was more of a DPS issue then a healing issue.  Pretty hard to keep everyone up when the debuff has the tanks health at only 42K max and everyone else is sitting around 20K health.  I had no buffer to heal them.  If I kept AoE heals up, one shot on the tank would kill him.  If I kept on the tank the AoE would kill everyone else.  Two of the three wipes where really close.  One he was only at 16K when we wiped.  How horrible is that?

Over all, the DPS was horrible that run.  Each person was doing around 7K when I know they are all capable of so much more.  That made the dungeon hard for sure but we got it done in the end.  It was not easy at all but it was doable. That could be a huge factor is me having some of my healing issues. 

When I fight goes on longer then it has to... healing gets harder.
When people do not move from the bad stuff... healing gets harder.
When the DPS do not switch to adds... healing gets harder.
When no one bothers to interrupt the big spells... healing gets harder.

This group had low DPS, people taking to long to move, DPS not switching fast enough and big spells going off all the time.  In turn, that made my life hell.  So maybe I did better then I give myself credit for.  I still do not think I did well however.  There are many things I can improve on and I will in time.  It was a great learning experience and I was happy to have had it.

Most of the time learning in a situation like that makes you better.  Anyone can heal a perfect crew with perfect execution.  There is no room to learn when doing that because you can over heal, use cost ineffective spells and basically go hog wild but because things go down so fast it does not matter.  You can't learn like that.  These runs left me a ton of room to learn.  Oddly enough, I look forward to running again with my Shaman.  I am already sick and tried of these dungeons on my Hunter.

While my Hunter has mastered the execution of all the dungeons already and just wants his 70 valor and is screaming for a nerf so I do not have to waste 2 hours of my life every day my Shaman is really enjoying them.  I guess it comes from a stand point that my Shaman has things to gain from them whereas my Hunter does not.

There should be 2 sets of heroics.  One for people who need to gear up and one for people who have already geared up.  If every item in every slot is over 346 (not that retarded item level crap) then you get into a nerfed to hell version where you can get in and get out and just get your valor points.  If all items in all slots is not at least a 346 you get the normal heroics that are still hard and you still need to work on mechanics.

That would be the perfect way.  It lets the people that are done with heroics still get their valor and not have to waste all day in fail groups that have no clue how to play and it lets the people that need to learn, learn. 

So far however, everything I have heard about Shaman healing seems to be true.  It is easy.  With the right group it is very effective.  A little boost due to the fact that 90% of the player base sucks and you will need to compensate for that would be nice however.  I can't wait to see what it is like when I am actually geared and gemmed and enchanted correctly.  I think with practice I will be a better resto shaman then I am an enhancement shaman.

Shaman Healing is Fun

So after reading about how to heal as a Shaman on Friday I went home and picked the best of the gear I collected while leveling and was ready to jump into Shaman healing. 

Compared to Priest healing it did not seem like it would be much of an issue leaning.  There are just not as many tools to keep track of for a Shaman.

First thing first, a quick scan of the auction house to see if there are any cheap fill ins for my missing spots.  I had an item for every spot except for trinkets.  There was one trinket on the auction house for 300 gold so I snatched that up and figured I would fly with one trinket until I could get a drop.

I enlisted a few guild members to help me on my learning experiment and when I was done with all my gear and making all my macros we went out to test drive Shaman healing. 

I use mouse overs for everything I do when healing.  It makes life so easy, a few numbers, shift, alt modifiers, and everything you need is at your finger tips.

We get HoO as my first random normal.  We die... horribly... on the first pack.  I'm sorry.  That is about all I can say really.  I need to get used to knowing where I put what.  Trying to riptide when it is on CD is not a good thing.  Trying to chain heal and casting a healing wave does not exactly have the same desired results.  You know, all that jazz.

We try again and all is fine and dandy.  What exactly does fine and dandy even mean?  We make it a few bosses in and wipe again on another trash pack.  Damn it.  I can not keep up with the trash mobs.  Bosses, no problem, trash is killing me or better said, killing everyone because of me.

More CC please.  Okay, all is fine now.  After clearing the four elemental we get ready for the big guy and it is going well for the most part but for the first time every I go oom.  A shadow priest takes over on healing and I throw whatever little I can when I regen mana and we down it.  Maybe once I get another trinket that will help a little.

We go through the whole thing.  Nothing drops for my poor little shammy.  We do another random and once again, nothing for my restoration set but at least I got two enhancement drops.

Third time is a charm on Saturday.  I grab a second trinket and a replacement for the trinket I bought on the auction house as filler and get two other drops and now had enough rep to get another item.  So the restoration set is starting to look nice.

Another run later and I am suddenly 329 item level.  Don't let the number fool you.  Blizzard, in all their infinite wisdom (please note that is sarcasm), decided that they like to count both my enhancement set and my restoration set as part of my item level. 

As it worked out, the pieces I was missing and still wearing 272 and 285 items on my restoration set I had a 333 and 346 of in my enhancement set up.  I was no where near heroics in either spec but put together I had enough. 

A guild member wanted me to heal a heroic and my basic response was, what the hell, are you insane?  Just try it they said.  Okay, but when you die don't come looking to me to cover your repair bills.  We try, we wipe, we give up after about 6 more wipes.  It is partly me still learning and it is partly me having a 272 chest piece and other crap items.  I was doing fine every try, until I started to go oom. 

The trash packs where more deadly then the bosses.  Even if we downed them I had to drain every bit of healing into the tank and the tank alone.  If anyone else took any damage they where on their own.  If I took my eye off the tank for even a riptide on anyone else it would have been a wipe. 

The bosses, I could just not last through.  My heals where not landing for enough which meant I needed to cast a lot more of them then I should have which meant that I went oom a lot faster.  If one DPS took aggro and I tried to save him then it was good night for everyone.  I told them I was not heroic ready.

We moved back to normals and I gathered up a few more pieces for both sets, still wearing that damn 272 chest piece however.  I am up to a 336 item level between the two sets of gear.  Funny part is, on their own, neither one is heroic ready (325 Enhancement and 316 Restoration) but together I am more then heroic ready.  Blizzards system needs some serious fixing I think.

All in all Shaman healing is fun because there is not a great deal to it.  It is basically three buttons.  A few more for occasional use and a few more for situational use.  That is it.  I have more healing spells alone on my Priest then I have all spells on my Shaman. 

Priest healing means I need to decide what to cast, when to cast it, consider the mana usage, consider the possible impact, etc.  Shaman healing there are basically three things to do.  That's it for the most part.  If the tank will be taking some big hits I need to add a forth into normal usage maybe.

Now I really see why everyone says Shaman healing is laughable.  It really is a learning class for healers.  If you have never healed before this seems to be the way to go.  Fewer buttons means fewer decisions that need to be made on the fly which in turn means fewer chances for error.

I am still overhealing a lot, but I contribute that to not knowing what the incoming damage will be so I am always playing it safe and over compensating for the fact I know my heals are not strong.  I need to learn to stop that.  That is my downfall when it comes to mana management.

There is a healer rotation even if everyone will tell you there isn't, even if rotation is kind of the wrong word for it.  In a way you need to be just like the DPS.  You need to know when you use your rapid fire or use your berserk. 

You can't go burning your big damage ability when you know you will not get to use it.  Learning the fight means you learn when you can use your damage boosting abilities to their best effect. 

Healing is the same way.  Knowing when the big damage is coming to the tank allows you to plan for it and have that really long cast big heal in mid cast so it lands the split second that the tank takes that huge hit.  Knowing when a huge AoE is going to come and how much it is going to hit for makes life easier too.  If the AoE is going to come and tick for 50K total over 10 seconds then you know, as long as everyone is over 50K and not taking any additional avoidable damage that you can concentrate on the tank alone and go do some catch up work on them later.

So that is the stage I am at.  I am thinking, while learning that part of it.  The healing rotation so to speak.  I might be better off doing it on my Shaman.  Like I said, less buttons means less chance for a mistake.  On my Priest there are so many time where I could make the mistake of casting something that I would have been better casting something else.  That can't happen with a Shaman, there is nothing else they can cast to make that mistake with.

That is what makes Shaman healing fun.  I look forward to doing it more.  Maybe I will even start doing some randoms without guild members soon as well.  That is always the true test for healing ability.  I just worry about stupid DPS taking avoidable damage.  DPS taking avoidable damage is the downfall of most healers, even the good ones.  The learning ones like me, well, if DPS starts taking huge damage you might as well just call for a wipe.  I either heal them and oom or ignore them and hope that the tank and me can finish the fight alone because they are going to die from their own stupidity.

My few attempts at heroic healing however left a bad taste in my mouth.  I know I was amazingly undergeared at the time (would guess around 305 item level) and there was no reason for me to be there at all but I really feel I should have done better and I didn't.  It is not all about gear.  It is about skill and I do not feel I operated at the skill level I needed to. 

From what I have seen, a skilled healer, can easily heal heroics even in green gear.  I know it for a fact, I had a healer in one of my randoms that must have had better gear on their offspec because all but 4 pieces of gear were green and they healed it no problem.  There is no way they were heroic ready. I hope one day I can get that good.  Trying to get that good will be the fun part.  Trying on a Shaman seems like it will be a lot easier.