Two Healers in one, Dual Spec thoughts for a Shaman Healer.

06Apr09

*** After a few runs in Ulduar I’ve changed my mind about this experiment and gone 0/16/55 maxing out crit and dropping HW. I’m finding LHW is a really important raid heal and specialising as an AOE healer doesn’t help the raid group***

I’m thinking about trying 2 healer specs for Hexette my shaman, with two sets of glyphs for the 3.1 patch when it comes.  My guild runs a one man/one spec policy and I really like healing with my Shaman, it is after all my primary healing character!  My Hunter or Death Knight are more fun to play DPS and if I’m feeling like tanking I always have my Prot Warrior or Paladin!! 

What I’m considering right now is trying to be more specialised in two different roles using dual specs, one for 2 to 5 man groups focusing on single target healing, but still including the benefits of shaman AOE healing, and the other focusing entirely on AOE and RAID healing, abandoning Earth Shield.  It looks like all the healer classes can think this way bar Paladin’s.  Paladin are probably getting the best deal in 3.1 for diversity, they only really have one specialised healer role, and are kings of it.  If they are a primary healer they can use multi spec to DPS or Tank as a secondary spec and retribution Paladins get the lovely replenishment effect!

Small group spec here

Glyphs for this spec are:

1.  Glyph of Water Mastery, helping my MP5 because I’m going to be spending a lot of time casting.

2.  Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave to add 20% to Tank Heals from Lesser Healing Wave.

3.  Glyph of Earth Shield to add 20% to Earth Shield.

This spec is a tighter version of my v3.0 spec (I have Earthliving instead of Glyph of Earth Shield which is NEW in v3.1).  I’m still farming Heroics!  Basically dual specs will now allow me to focus on different aspects of healer craft.

For the play style with the small group spec, I’ll be playing a bit like a Paladin healer.  Spamming a quick heal, Lesser Healing Wave, and trying to apply Riptide to the tank, only refreshing when it runs out.   I think crit is less important for me in 5 man for this spec as I want smooth HPS, with some burst emergency heals driven by Tidal Force and Nature’s Swiftness Macros.  I’m needing more spell power and MP5 rather than crit and I can make up the difference in gear and Tidal force can be used situationally (and a moonkin in the group really helps!!).

This also means when there is group AOE I can keep a riptide for the squishiest/most in danger.  Healing wave can be thrown in when the tank has taken a big damage spike, and can also be used with Nature’s swiftness in an emergency on an over aggroing squishy!  Chain heal is not a primary spell for this build, we Shaman have other buttons too!!

Because this is for the smaller groups, I’m including silence mitigation as well and putting points into healing myself/reducing aggro if I take aggro/damage through the Nature’s Guardian talent.

If I were doing PVP I’d drop water mastery for Glyph of Healing Wave.  In fact I’d probably need another spec entirely!  I sure wish I had this which may make time spent in PVP land something I may need to consider!!!  Any PVP advice for a restoration shaman would be gratefully received!!

The next build is heavy AOE healing and more geared towards 10/25 man

Raid healing Spec here

Glyphs for this spec are

1.  Glyph of Chain Heal, one more target for potential Earthliving procs

2.  Glyph of Riptide, meaning I can pretty much keep riptide on three players at a time.

3.  Glyph of Healing Stream Totem because I’ll not be using Mana stream.

The play style here will use Riptide to pop my Improved Water Shield for mana so I’ll be casting this every 6 seconds (if I can).  I need as high a crit as I can get for it for mana returns and Ancestral Awakening, and you can spec 14% crit into your build with Thundering Strikes, Tidal Mastery and Blessing of the Eternals.  Replenishment will replace the need for the Glyph of Water Mastery, but Raid healing is more stop/start so mana will only be an issue if I get greedy and try to match the Circle of Healing and Wild Growth healers in the group (no chance there!!) rather than kick into action when the raid is getting hammered.  Who knows what Ulduar will throw at us so this is speculative!

No doubt once I’ve two spec trees to play with I’ll change my mind, but this seems to be the plan today!!

Any Comments?

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