Helping Simone with Northrend Beasts

Matticus has a fun little post up about healing assignments for a hypothetical ToC25 raid.  Since his site is blocked at work, I thought I'd just post my answers here.  (At least you'll know I didn't "cheat," because I can't read his other comments either!)

The Set-up

Scenario: Heroic Northrend Beasts 25
Tanks: Warrior, Paladin, Death Knight.  (Check out Matt's post for detailed run-down on tanking assignments.)
Healers: 2 Resto Shamans, 1 Holy Paladin, 1 Discipline Priest, 2 Resto Druid (1 optimized for tank healing, 1 optimized for raid healing)

The Solution

... or, rather, my solution — because there is no one "right" way to do this.

Phase 1:  The holy paladin should beacon the warrior and heal the death knight.  The discipline priest should heal the paladin, and the tank-optimized resto druid should heal the warrior (but keep HoTs rolling as much as possible on all three tanks to help with bleed damage).  Remind the tankadin to keep his sacred shield active, as the healadin’s will be on the death knight.

Phase 2:  The discipline priest and one of the shamans should heal the Acidmaw tank.  The holy paladin and the tank-optimized druid should heal the Dreadscale tank.  The logic here is that the disc priest will mitigate incoming damage on his assignment, which will allow his partner — the resto shaman — to bounce Chain Heal off the Acidmaw tank for some additional splash healing on the melee.  Meanwhile, the resto druid can keep HoTs rolling on the Dreadscale tank, who will be kiting (which can occasionally lead to range issues).

Phase 3:  The healers need to spread out in a semi-circle around Icehowl so no more than two are frozen by Arctic Breath at once.  Raid healers and tank healers should be staggered as much as possible.

Earth Shields:  One shaman should Earth Shield the warrior, while the other shaman switches his shield between the paladin and death knight, depending upon who is tanking at the time.  If one of the shamans has Lesser Healing Wave glyphed, than that shaman should be the one to assist with the Acidmaw tank in P2 (with his ES on that tank).  For simplicity’s sake, I’d have the warrior tank Acidmaw the entire time and the paladin and death knight switch off on Dreadscale depending upon who has the fire debuff.  That way, the warrior will be free to pick up Icehowl as soon as he arrives, even if Dreadscale is still up and one of his two tanks has the fire debuff.

Not it!

As far as I know, I wasn't tagged for Miss Medicina's now infamous not-meme (maybe if I spent less time angsting about my guild and more time writing useful things, people would remember that I'm a main-spec healer? >.>), but I decided to do it anyway.  If nothing else, Bell's tag was open-ended enough for me to feel entitled to an opinion.   

* What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
My raiding main is Liluye, a Tauren restoration shaman. 

* What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) 
I heal 10 and 25-man raids (currently, Ulduar 10 hardmodes and ToGC 10 and 25), and the very occasional 5-man. 

* What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Riptide!  I love having an instant cast HoT that not only buffs my primary raid heal (Chain Heal), but also increases the crit chance on my main spot heal (Lesser Healing Wave).  I'm not going to lie: most of it is aesthetics — that waterfall animation is awesome!

* What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Healing Wave.  Since I run with one or two holy paladins and a discipline priest, it's very seldom that I'm assigned to main tank heals.  I will still cancel-cast Healing Waves on General Vezax (our bear tank can take some pretty nasty spike damage¹) — but outside of a Nature's Swiftness/Healing Wave combination, that's it. 

* What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Our mana regen is second-to-none.  I healed a ToC 25 PuG this weekend (I sat out the guild raid to let some lesser-geared members in), and died relatively early into the Lord Jaraxxus encounter.  I ankh'd back in, popped a mana potion and then dropped Mana Tide.  Even though I was running on fumes for most of the fight, I never quite managed to bottom out.  Everytime I thought I was OOM, I'd proc Water Shield on that last desperate heal.

When I was playing a warlock last year in 2v2 arena, I hated coming up against a resto shaman.  "They aren't OOM until they're dead," I lamented on more than one occasion.  Turns out, it's true!

* What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
A lack of defensive cooldowns, a la Divine Guardian or Pain Suppression.  My one OSHIT! button is a macro that casts Nature's Swiftness in conjunction with either Healing Wave (alt) or Chain Heal (ctrl).  It can be useful, but it's reactive rather than proactive and I have lost people in the time it takes for me to react or the server to recognize the command (and since I have auto-self cast turned on, it hits me instead of the corpse that I failed to heal — wasting the two minute cooldown).

* In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Raid healing.  While shamans are certainly capable of tank healing, paladins and discipline priests are superior single-target healers.  Meanwhile, Chain Heal remains a very powerful tool, especially if we're free to concentrate on the melee.  (Hint: This means /not/ being assigned to spot heal ranged soakers on the heroic Twins!)

* What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
The short answer:  Annah.

The long answer: I don't have a strong preference.  All other things being equal, I'd choose a holy paladin or discipline priest in a 10-man raid environment, since their strong single target heals complement my strong AoE heals (and they have defensive cooldowns that shamans and druids lack).  In a 25-man, obviously, I strive for a more balanced mix. 

* What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Another resto shaman — and not (just) because they steal my loot!  All four classes have different strengths and weaknesses, so doubling up one class effectively halves the number of tools in our shared arsenal.  

* What is your worst habit as a healer?
Tunnel vision.  Big time.  I'm so focused on Grid that I often miss environmental effects, especially when learning a new fight for the first time.  I've come to rely on our raid leader and various assists calling out DBM warnings on Vent. 

* What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
Ironically, given my answer to the last question: players who call for heals, or raid leaders who make snarky comments like "Might want to heal X!" in the middle of a boss fight.  I spend the entire raid staring at Grid, which is strategically placed above my minimap.  If a player needs heals, then I /will/ see it — possibly before he does.  If the mage is out of range (perhaps because he was shadowcrashed halfway to Grizzly Hills?), then I will locate him on my map and make a split-second decision: run towards him, if I can do so without letting another (more important) assignment die; call on Vent for him to run to me; or simply trust another healer who is closer or faster to heal him instead. 

I'm used to PuGs being rude about this (that's what GridStatusIgnore is for!).  But in a guild run of Uld 10, when I have the fucking Champion of Ulduar title displayed?  Trust me to do my job or kick me from the goddamn raid.  Seriously.

* Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Shamans are in a fantastic place right now.  We are exceptional raid healers and (properly glyphed and itemized) can be strong main tank healers as well.  We buff the raid via totems, which can be tailored to suit not only to the group make-up but also the nature of the encounter.  We have defensive and offensive dispels, a ranged interrupt that is off the global cooldown, limited but still situtationally viable CC, self-resurrection and — of course — Bloodlust.  If anything, shamans are overpowered at the moment compared to other healing classes. 

* What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
As far as actual tools go, Recount and World of Logs — when I remember to record the combat log, that is.  >.>  As a healer, evaluating my performance tends to be more open-ended.  Did my assignment live?  If so, did others have to cover for me, or was I largely self-sufficient?  Did I communicate effectively with the other healers over the course of the fight, announcing things like interrupts and spell locks?  My place on the healing meter is entirely dependent upon my assignment (let me Chain Heal the melee and I may top it, but ask me to top off the ranged DPS during a movement intense fight and I'm barely a blip!), so I don't put much stock in it, in general.

* What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That all there is to healing as a shaman is facerolling Chain Heal.  Although there's no denying that Chain Heal is a very powerful tool, it is stronger in some situations and weaker (even very nearly useless) in others, and is /always/ best used in conjunction with our other abilities. 

* What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
There is a rhythm (for lack of a better word) to shaman healing that it simply takes time to learn.  I think this is true of all healers, though.  You can memorize tooltips and research the best "rotations" on Elitist Jerks or PlusHeal, but it takes experience and a fair amount of trial and error to become comfortable enough with your abilities to use them quickly and intuitively — both of which are absolutely essential for healing in a progression raid environment.

* 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)?
This varies wildly from fight to fight.  Surreality is currently working on the heroic Twin Valkyrs, and even though I'm officially assigned to the melee, I end up doing a lot of spot healing on the ranged soakers.  My output is relatively low as a result of the unusually high percentage of Lesser Healing Waves I'm casting relative to Chain Heal — especially now that we're simply healing through Touch of Light and Touch of Darkness.  On a fight like XT Deconstructor or the Beasts of Northrend, where the entire raid is taking periodic damage and I'm able to concentrate on the tanks and melee, my output will be much higher, my overhealing will be lower, and Chain Heal will make up the vast majority of my healing.

* Haste or Crit and why?
Haste.  While I would never say no to crit — it procs Water Shield and Ancestral Awakening — I am currently gemming for straight haste.  More haste means faster Chain Heals, which jump up to four times and (thanks to recent buffs!) lose less healing per jump than ever before.  Meanwhile, more crit results in more overhealing and faster mana regen, neither of which I particularly need at this point in the game.

* What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Discipline priests — for all that my favorite healer in all of Azeroth is one.  (Fortunately, no one else seems to understand them either!)

* What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I'm an add-on whore.  I currently use Grid, Clique, HoTcandy and TotemTimers.  I also have macros to combine Nature's Swiftness with Tidal Waves and either Healing Wave or Chain Heal.

* Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
I'm currently stacking haste.  Intellect was king two tiers ago, but my regen is so strong now that I'm determined to stack haste for faster Chain Heals until I start running into mana problems.  I don't see that happening in this expansion, though.

*   *  *

Just for fun, I tag my guild's resident trees: Forreststump and — if he isn't too busy with exams and that NaNoWriMo thing I keep reading about — Naithin.  Miss Medicina has a list on her site of everyone who has responded so far, if you're curious! 

Also, someone should totally start the tank version of this so I can do that one, too.  <hint hint>