Ailis in Hunterland

So, 3.1 has been out for almost a week now and I’d like to know what your general impressions are.  Loves?  Hates?  Meh?

On a relatively minor note, I rewrote the Gear article into an easier format, included more choices and added some of the new crafted items and Argent Tournament rewards.  As I said before, I’m not an expert in all things Shammy (as some of you so delightfully pointed out to me when the series was first released) – I write what I’ve learned and I’m still learning.  Nothing I say should be taken as the hard and fast ultimate rule for anything.  These are my thoughts, my experiences and my choices, good or bad.  I urge anyone looking to raise a shammy and propel them into raiding to read multiple blogs on the subject then put all that information aside and figure it out on your own.  Everyone has a different playstyle, different goals, different motivations and you do what suits you the best.

Moving on.

My Spirit Wolves will Kill You

I finally had a chance to test out the new Glyph of Feral Spirit and, I must say, I like it.  Of course, you’ll only see an increase in your DPS for the 45 seconds that your Wolves are out.  However, depending on your total AP, you will see a definite spike in damage when you pop them.  Overall, from what I’ve see in my training dummy tests and in a raid situation (both Ulduar and Naxx), my sustained DPS has definitely increased.  Keep in mind that you need to pop them every 3 minutes in order to get the most use out of this glyph, so, if you’re one to forget to pop them or just don’t care to use them, then this glyph isn’t for you.

Dual Specs, Oh How I Love Thee

Seriously, I really do.

“Ailis, can you flip over to healing on Gluth so you can be in the back with your Earthbind totem and heal the kiters?”

“Sure.”

click

one-shot Gluth, no one dies

“Okay, I’m going back to DPS for Thaddius.”

“Go for it.”

click

True story.

You’re out of my range!

Healing in Ulduar is definitely a challenge.  DPS’ing in Ulduar is definitely a challenge.  All in all, Ulduar is…..yes, a challenge.  But I love every moment of it.  Naxx, while fun, is easy.  You can mentally check out on most of the fights in there, still down the boss and take home your very own set of purple pixels.  Ulduar isn’t quite the case.  With new strats coming out every day and the way Blizzard designed these fights, you have to really pay attention to everything.

The biggest thing I noticed about healing in Ulduar is that I cannot stand still for more than a few seconds at any given time.  I am constantly moving, which wreaks havoc on my heals because, unless I’ve activated Nature’s Swiftness, none of my heals are instant cast.  So it’s chase the tank down, stop, heal, chase him again, stop, heal, chase that DPS there who’s dying, stop, heal, rinse, repeat.

This is, honestly, what I love about Ulduar.  It’s forcing you to think about what you’re doing, where you’re standing, how your mana is surviving the fight, where everyone is and, on top of that, how in the hell do we kill this guy?  It’s a puzzle – a grand, complex, missing a corner piece because the dog ate it, puzzle.  Yes, we’ll eventually get to the point where we’re stomping through Ulduar but that point is a long way off and I’m excited for the journey there.

I respecced resto yesterday to help out some guildies in heroics since we had no other healers online.  

I have a love/hate relationship with being a healer.  I love that my gear rocks and my stats are excellent and I have a modicum of knowledge about what to do.  I hate all the stress and anxiety that goes with being  a healer.  If you’ve never healed an instance and you play a class that has that capability, go respec and do it once.  In fact, go heal H HoL and tell them you’ll heal through the Nova.

Earth Shield, Riptide, Chain Heal, Chain Heal, Chain Heal, Chain Heal…

Healing as a shaman is great, actually, despite all my muttering to the contrary.  We have a battery of skills that are extremely useful for group healing and functional for single-target healing.  Most of the time, as a resto shaman, you will be placed on raid heals rather than tank heals because of Chain Heal.  It’s very powerful, causes a lot of overhealing, and casts very quickly.

Your Healing Wave is reserved mostly for the tanks because of the insane amount of HP they have.  Your Lesser Healing Wave will do jack to them and is best used on choice members of the raid that didn’t get topped off by your Chain Heal.

While we may not be as powerful of a healer as a Holy Priest or a Holy Paladin, we have a few tricks in our arsenal that make healing fun, albeit very harried and interesting.  So, the point of my painfully short post is, if you play a shaman and haven’t ventured into the Resto tree at all, please do.  If anything, it will help you appreciate your healers a lot more.