Priest healing or shammy healing?

Question

I have a priest and a shammy in World of Warcraft. My shammy is 85, but my priest is only 80. Thus far I've only used my shammy for dps and I've tried to stay away from making him a healer. My priest - although he is only level 80 - has always primarily been a healer (mostly just heroics with the occasional raid).

However, I've been throwing around the notion of dual spec'ing my shammy and making him a healer, which leads me to my question. Should I spend the time and gold on setting my shammy up as a healer, or should I work on leveling my priest up and just use him to heal. What is driving this question is a concern that I have as to whether shammy healing is really worth the effort or not. I've seen chat in the trade channel where player's specifically say that they need heals for a raid but not shammy heals. If I'd just seen this once then I wouldn't worry over it, but I've seen it multiple times.

Also, I was in a 5 man heroic last week and someone in the group asked which is the best healing class. The healer (who was a priest) responded that pallies and priests have it the best for healing right now. It's just little things like this that make me doubt it's worth my time to set up a healing spec on my shammy. Oh, and I did peruse the shammy forum with this in mind, and I saw a lot of posts from shammies griping that healing sucks as well.

EDIT: This question was posed on Jan. 12, 2011. It should be noted that any input given by board members upon this question might have been made obsolete due to patches, class changes, etc, or in other words, the accuracy of this question and its answer(s) is highly subjective to the passing of time.

Asked by Jagd

Answer

First off: I would warn against basing any decision like this on month to month balance considerations. Things change so often in WoW that you should really decide based on how much you enjoy a particular classes playstyle, toolbox, and yes, even aesthetics. Healing Balance is Pretty Good right now. All five healing specs have a role to play, and a (25 man) raid which doesn't have the flexibility to see them all represented is a 25 man raid that is going to run into trouble. At the five man level, all five specs are more than capable of handling any content you'll see, though Discipline Priests in particular may find Heroics somewhat more challenging than most due to increased gear dependency.

That said, the current state of PvE healer balance at the high end is this: Priests are somewhat above average at Group and Raid healing - this is reflected by the nerfs to Prayer of Healing in the upcoming 4.0.6 patch, but those nerfs don't really change the overall state of things. Additionally, Priests bring extremely powerful cooldowns to a group such as Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit, Leap of Faith, Divine Hymn, and Power Word: Barrier, all of which are defining abilities that have had entire strategies built around them. If you see raids specifically looking for Priests to heal, this is why.

Shaman by contrast, are currently the kings of PvP healing because they are extremely durable, mobile thanks to the new Spiritwalker's Grace ability, and bring substantially more offensive utility than other healers thanks to Heroism/Bloodlust, Wind Shear, Totems and Purge. In PvE, every 25 man raid wants at least one Resto Shaman for Mana Tide - and 10 mans love to have it as well. Mana Tide is the single most powerful mana regen ability in the game, and it is absolutely essential for success for many groups in many encounters. Additionally, you may find it easier to gear up a Shaman for healing because there will be less competition on mail pieces with intellect than you will find on similar cloth pieces - and because if you already have decent DPS gear, you always have the option of DPSing your way to a healing set.

My advice to you? Try out healing on the shaman. Chain Heal, Spiritwalkers Grace, Riptide and Healing Rain are all enormously fun abilities, and the Shaman healing style is unique among healers in WoW. Unless you're pushing bleeding edge content the class balance issues seen there are going to be largely moot for you - what matters much more is your own competence and gear.

As an aside, checking the WoW forums will always find you nothing but gripes. A saying I'm fond of is that the forums are as much an indicator of players happiness as a hospital is an indicator of public health.

Answered by LessPop_MoreFizz

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which one is more effective for healing, magic or potions?

Question

Fellow dovahkiins,

I am an archer, with a tendency to sneak. Although my build usually allows me to deal large amount of damage from relatively safe range, I am now thinking of preparing for times when the situation gets ugly.

So is it more cost / time effective to invest in restoration tree or alchemy tree? Or maybe just buy potions from stores? Or is it best to just make potions without investing in alchemy?

Answer

With my sneaky archer, I've found that the situations where you end up taking damage are rare enough that you should be able to get by fine with just the potions you loot from the environment, especially if you're travelling with some living bait a trusty companion to tank the damage while you dish out pain from a safe distance.

That said, I think alchemy works better than restoration with this build since you don't have to put your bow away to use potions. When an enemy is chasing you, you need to be pumping arrows into them non-stop for the chance to stagger which is essential for keeping them at a distance or interrupt mages from casting. Having to put your bow down, plus the time to cast healing spells may give enemies too much time.

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Leveling Restoration

Question

There are some nice restoration perks I'm trying to level up for.

Does (dual) casting heal when your health is full gain restoration experience?

If not, what are some good restoration leveling techniques?

Answer

No, it does not. Skills only level when the game judges them to have been "usefully" employed; in the case of spells, that means the spell must have had some noticeable effect. Casting healing spells at full health does nothing, nor does casting damage spells into a wall or armor spells without entering combat.

For leveling restoration, your best bet is to use the turn undead spell line, which gives skill increases very quickly. Head to your favorite barrow and start sending the skeletons fleeing before you kill them.

I would strongly caution against "boosting" non-damage skills in Skyrim. You risk your character leveling up too rapidly without having the combat skills he needs to survive. These techniques are best employed to catch up support skills that have fallen behind.

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Healer add-ons for end-game raiding in WoW?

Question

As a followup to my earlier question, what add-ons are available to assist healers in end-game raiding? How do they work with limited screen real estate? (I already use Skada, BadKitty, DBM, MikScrollingBattleText, TidyPlates and SexyCooldown)

Answer

Googling for Healing Addon List the first result is a question on EpicAdvice.com with a pretty good accepted answer. I've quoted the answer below for reference.

From - Healing Addons List

Raid frames

Grid
"Grid is a modular, lightweight, and screen-estate saving grid of party/raid unit frames."

A very good raid frame which is very useful for healers. (Clbull)
Note: it can take a lot of fiddling to set up how you like it, but lots of tutorials exist for it and once you get the hang of it, it's easy. (lilserf)

Click-bindings

Clique "Clique is a simple GUI that lets you assign click-casting for any number of unit frames. Click casting allows you to define the behavior the game takes when you click on a frame. This can be casting spells, running a macro, using an item, or something as simple as changing targets or assisting a unit."

Excellent when used with Grid to let you bind various clicks (right, left, middle, shift-left, etc) to different spells. (lilserf)

Cleansing

Decursive "Decursive is a cleansing mod intended to render affliction removal easy, effective and fun for all the classes having this ability."

I use Decursive, and I believe it (or a similar addon) is not only helpful, but imperative. (Hhoky)

All-in-one

VuhDo "VuhDo is a raid monitor similar to CTRaidAssist or Blizzards built-in raid frames. Basically this is about displaying the health of raid members in form of clearly arranged bars. VuhDo is primarily directed to healing classes, but will make use to almost any other class. Moreover several healing spells or other actions can be asserted to mouse clicks on those bars (Click-Heal)."

This is a solid replacement for Grid, Clique, Healbot, what-have-you. Full raid frames, ability to bind spells (and Macros!) to key and mouse clicks on those frames, integration with the incoming heals libraries so you can tell when someone is going to be fine or not, ability to display HoTs easily, and best of all -- it works out of the box. Grid can take some time to set up properly, but VuhDo just works. (Celairia)

Player versus Player

Gladius "Gladius adds enemy unit frames to arenas for easier targeting and focusing. It is highly configurable and you can disable most features of this addon."

Gladius is every arena player's dream. Just like VuhDo it will run out of the box; you can simply drag the window to where you'd like and enter an arena. However, if customisation is your forté then there will be plenty to keep you busy. In addition to the usual Blizzard UI features of tracking health/mana counts and spellcasting, (albeit in a prettier way,) Gladius tracks enemy trinket up/downtime and drinking/first-aiding, as well as several important buffs and cooldowns. (Roble)

Miscellanenous

VisualHeal "VisualHeal is a small and simple but powerful tool for all classes that visually shows your heals to others and heals incoming to you from others by means of two information-packed, yet intuitive bars."

It shows all incoming heals to my target (great for watching overheals, or interrupting heals to maximize raid healing). (Hhoky)

SmartRes "SmartRes puts bars on your screen that have timers for the various resurection spells: Resurrection, Ancestral Spirit, Revive, Redemption, and tells you who is casting on whom, how long it will take to bring the target back to life."

I also use an incoming Rez addon, called SmartRes, but that's just my personal preference, to maximize rez's. (Hhoky)

Class-specific

PoMTracker "A mod that tracks who Prayer of Mending is jumping to and how many charges you have left. Displaying it in a small movable window frame." (Hhoky)

Hope it helps!

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When a player is revived, do they get their buffed health back?

Question

When an injured player takes cover to heal, their health only refills up to the next pip marker - usually if you're covering for health this means your health was very low, and so you heal to no buffs (until a Medic comes along and re-buffs your health for you).

But, when a Medic revives an incapacitated player, do they return with unbuffed health, or with any additional pips intact?

Answer

Just tested it out on 360. You will return with unbuffed health. Does not matter if another medic revives you, or you self-revive.

Would actually make for a nice ability for a medic, come to think of it. Being able to revive/buff in one go would save a pip, but be pretty situational.

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How to tend to a wounded dwarf?

Question

I was building a vertical tunnel down multiple levels when I realized that one of my other dwarves had already dug the lower half. When the poor dwarf dug through the upper half, he fell multiple stories and is now lying there unconscious and with both arms and both legs broken.

Now what? I don't have a doctor or anyone trained in caring for wounded dwarves yet, how do I proceed from here?

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Edit #1 OK I followed the various ideas (thanks!) but before a medical dwarf could get to him, someone else moved him a few squares cause he was in the way (heh), and he woke up. His "thoughts and preferences" still have

His left upper leg is broken. His right lower arm is broken.
His left lower arm is broken. His right upper leg is broken

BUT he is taking digging jobs and seems to be acting like everything is OK. He also now has a "health" page but it says No health problems. Is this a bug or something I'm doing wrong?

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Edit #2 The problem was that the doctor had not taken a look at him and made a diagnosis. After he took a look, here is what I see (and it hurts to look):

left lower arm, bone
 Needs setting
 Smashed apartright lower arm, bone
 Needs setting
 Smashed apartleft upper leg, bone
 Needs setting
 Smashed apartright upper leg, bone
 Needs setting
 Smashed apart

Answer

Firstly, do you have a hospital? If not, build one, even if it is just a bed somewhere random. (Your dining hall would actually be a pretty good place)

Even though you don't have any dwarfs that are trained in those skills, it doesn't mean they can't do them. It just means they'll suck. So pick a dwarf who isn't busy and activate the medical skills on him and deactivate all the rest. He should run and get the dwarf and carry him back to the hospital bed.

Make sure you have buckets and prepared meals. Wounded dwarfs who can't feed themselves need to be feed by other dwarfs. Buckets provide drinks, and prepared meals provide food. I think just any food can be given to a wounded dwarf, but I've always had the most luck with prepared meals.

Finally, wait. Either the dwarf you esoterically assigned to be a doctor will patch your dwarf back together (assuming you have a traction bench, cast powder, and crutches) or he'll keep him alive until a more skilled dwarf comes to save the day.

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