I am still leveling Ahami as resto (I am the crazy) and I am still liking it a lot, even though the lack of DPS is starting to really suck. Right now I have some sort of crazy person build because, as I did with Ideale, I'm going to get her to 41 points in what I think a resto shaman should have, then go look at standard builds and adapt as needed.
Anyway, 38 levels as resto (well, 28), and I've learned a few things that have actually let me kill larger groups of mobs at higher levels than I did even as a hunter! See, resto shamans are like cockroaches. We're nearly impossible to kill (except by rogues when we haven't hit the battlegrounds yet and thus have no trinket).
First tip: If you are going to level resto and you know someone who wants to level a tank, team up as much as possible (and try to stay around the same level, so you can find PuGs easily). Barring that, find similarly-leveled rogues, warriors, or mages and go through as much of a zone as possible with them. They kill things for you, you heal them so they have less down time, and you both go through the quests a bajillion times faster. Unless you hate instances like me, a good method would be to do all of the instance quests available — any time you aren't soloing, you will be leveling faster than if you are soloing.
That said, here are tips for soloing:
1. Don't waste your mana! No mana = dead shaman. As resto, you do not have the DPS to take out higher-level mobs or a group of mobs quickly. So you need to outlast them. If you can't heal, you die. And shamans go out of mana really fast. So seriously, do not use your mana for anything you're not sure you need.
2. Put talent points into Healing Focus. I skipped this at first, then went back — I wish I'd caught it the first time around. It's really nice to be able to heal without getting interrupted to death (literally).
3. Put talent points into Nature's Swiftness. It can be used for heals, which means when you don't have the 2.5 seconds for Healing Wave, hit Nature's Swiftness and boom, instant, every three minutes.
4. When against multiple mobs, same-level elites, or orange mobs, keep Lightning Shield up, keep Flame Shock up, whack at them with your weapon, and that's it. Do not use your mana for anything else but healing. I have survived fights with elite mobs two levels up on me, barely, by doing this. I have lost those same fights trying to out DPS them and not having the mana for heals. Remember that you are a resto shaman, not a mage, and heal thyself.
5. I know it seems like a wasted talent, but improved reincarnation is very handy when you're learning exactly how much damage you can take at a time. A 40-minute timer instead of an hour has saved me a few corpse runs. However, wait until after you've put points in more useful talents to take this; I wish I had two more points in Healing Focus or a few points in Tidal Mastery instead. Oh well, 13 levels and then I can redo my spec.
6. Stack +int gear, even if you have to take a few cloth pieces to do so. More intellect means more mana, and more mana means more healing. You can be a cockroach almost as well in cloth as in leather — my personal (and incredibly silly) rule is that chest, feet and shoulders are leather, and I mix and match the rest.
7. Carry a one-hand mace and a shield if at all possible. The shield adds survivability, and thanks to paladins, you can find good shields with +int and +stam on them. And thanks to paladins and priests, there are plenty of one-hand maces that easily rival a staff or two-hand weapon for stats (at least that I've seen so far, at level 38). It's like the resto version of dual-wield. Plus, if you plan to stay resto at end game, 90 percent of the good healing weapons that I've looked at are one-hand maces, so hey, your skill will be all nice and maxed and ready to go.
8. Remember what class you are playing. You cannot Feign Death, no matter how many times you hit the keybind for it. All you are doing is wasting mana by casting Lightning Shield seven times in a row. (This tip's mostly for me.)
Some of the above? Could be wrong. I don't know, because I cannot find guides for leveling anything but elemental or enhancement. All of the resto leveling guides I've seen have just been: "Don't."
Most of what I can find are end-game tips, so these are cobbled together from my adaptations of that, my own playing experience, and looking at the pretty end-game armor and weapons and their stats. (I did this to learn which stats were important for a hunter, too, before I found the WoW blogosphere. It's pretty handy.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I am level 58 and just heading to outlands. My main was a Resto Druid and when I quit wow, I sold it. I have a 70 rogue, but missed healing so I have been leveling a Shaman to be resto. I would like to switch now for the following reasons:
1) Get instance runs easier
2) Get better gear and rep from instances
3) get more experience healing before 70
Since this was put up a while ago, do you have any more tips?
Can you recommend a spec for me currently and what talents are important from there?
In Outlands, Earthshield, flame on wep, stoneskin, mana stream, wrath of air, agro several, then magna totem?
Unfortunately, I'm still kind of feeling my way through PVE, so I'm not the best to ask, especially re: instances. I've only healed SM: Cath, Ramps, Blood Furnace, and lots and lots of AV.
You might want to check over at Too Many Annas (www.toomanyannas.com) for spec and instance-healing and stuff — I'm using a mostly cookie-cutter PVP spec right now with points in enhancement, but it seems to me that, while leveling, a resto/ele build might be better than my current one, because you'll be picking up more gear that's beneficial to casters.
I usually grab two or so mobs at a time, depending on level. I prefer to take chains of mobs rather than a bunch at once, but that's just my playstyle. As long as you have mana, you should be able to handle a group. If I do get a bunch, I'll hit chain lightning once or twice to get aggro, then drop Magma Totem. It's pretty slow going, though (or maybe it just feels slow after a hunter). I don't use the shocks a lot — I use Flame Shock, but only when it's about to run out, and I only use Earth Shock against casters. They're not that mana efficient, especially without any points in elem — as resto, the goal is kind of more about not losing too soon than about winning. You want to outlast mobs, not burn them down like you would as DPS.
I'm really lazy about totems if I'm not in an instance — I usually do Magma Totem and drop others only if needed. *shame* Grounding Totem gets a lot of use against casters. If you are meleeing at all, I'd drop Strength of Earth, since that's what shaman AP is based off of, I believe. With Earth Shield up, you shouldn't need Stoneskin anyway unless you're taking on too many mobs.
As far as gear while leveling, when you're doing quests and there's no reward with +healing, go for +spell damage when you can. You're going to do more damage as a caster than as melee, unless you take talents in the enhancement tree. (Actually, I have points in the enh tree and I still find myself doing more damage spamming lightning bolts than as melee.)
When you do instances (after 62), go for Water Shield over Earth Shield — you're going to burn through mana like crazy. Bring mana pots for backup and make sure to put a point in the Mana Tide Totem — that thing has saved my ass on many occasions in both PVE and PVP. And make sure you have ankhs — if you grab aggro and the tank can't get it back, you can self-rez (at least once) and still heal. Put Earth Shield on the tank — I've done several instances where I only had to heal on the boss because Earth Shield kept the tank topped off during the other pulls.
Flame on weapon is good, at least until things change in the expansion. Right now, though, flame uses spell damage (I believe) whereas with low melee AP and only one weapon, windfury probably won't proc enough to be really useful.
Um... that's about all I got.
Post a Comment