Healing questionaire-definitely-not-a-meme-survey-thing
November 2, 2009 § 1 Comment
Ok I’m a little late to the party on this, but I can never resist a good survey. Jessabelle at Miss Medicina created this questionaire-definitly-not-a-meme-survey-thing that I think is really interesting.
For those visiting my site for the first time and got directed to this post, my main in a lvl 80 gnome tank, but my second main is lvl 80 resto shaman. So I feel like this is a good thing for me to post for my healing side.
More info on the questionaire-definitely-not-a-meme-survey-thing can be found here.
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Zulaijang, Troll, Shaman, Restoration.
What is your primary group healing environment?
10-man Naxx/Ulduar.
What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
I’d say it has to be a tossup between Riptide and Chain Heal. I can usually get 3 riptides off on various people, especially casters during low, raid wide damage situations and get a lot of slow, but effective heals off while I focus on the melee. On the other hand, once those riptides are almost consumed, I get a lot of mileage by adding chain heal to the mix. Plus chain heal looks really cool and can really bring up the raids over all health pretty quickly.
What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Tidal Waves. Mostly because I just forget to use it. There’s no good reason for me not to use it–I just forget.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
With well place riptides, well timed natures swiftness, and well aimed chain heals we can bring a nearly dead raid back to full health in no time flat.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Mobility. If a fight requires me to move I have a seriously hard time. Being able to recall and drop all my totems at once helped a lot, but my strongest heals require cast time. If I’m moving, I can’t be casting. The fight against Hodir comes to mind.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
I have not stepped up to the 25 man raiding environment so I can’t answer this question from experience. If I were to guess I would imagine we would be strongest healing the tank and any melee grouped near by. Since our chain heals only hit 4 people, being relegated to raid wide healing might not be as useful in the 25-man environment, unless people stood in tight clumps for easier bouncing.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
I really like healing along side holy priests. Maybe that’s because when I’m a tank I prefer to have a priest at my back, but I feel like there’s a good synergy between me and the priests I run with. I love it when the priest goes around shielding everyone. Damage reduction for the win.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Druids. For a similar reason as others have listed–I have a hard time not stomping on their HoTs. And I don’t decide where my chain heal bounces will go, so sometimes I can’t really control when/if I over heal their HoTs.
What is your worst habit as a healer?
Overhealing. It’s something I’m working on, but I tend to do a lot of overhealing. Also I forget to use tidal waves.
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
People who call out ‘heal me’. I’m not an idiot. I see you. But dropping a heal on you might not be as important as say, the tank, or even me. Dead tank=dead healer. Dead healer=no healing. So stop telling me to heal you. Also, I really hate it when, after a wipe, people won’t release and run. They just lay there, expecting a rez, as if their time and energy is more valuable than mine. Don’t be a lazy ass. Rez and run with the rest of us.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
For the most part I would say yes. We all have issues with mana management, overhealing, strength of heals and so forth. I think shamans have been underestimated in their ability to be the primary tank healer, but that’s based mainly on past shaman mechanics, not current imbalances. The biggest thing we lack in comparison to other healing classes is mobility/instant heals.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Well first I look and see if anyone is dead. If nobody died, I’m doing pretty good. Actually though I use recount to track who I’m healing, how much I’m healing/overhealing, what spells I’m using etc.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That all we are good for is raid heals. With Earth Shield, Riptide, and Healing Wave, we are a powerful force to be reckoned with when it comes to being main heals on the main tank.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
Two things. One, learning when to cast chain heal, and when healing wave/lesser healing wave would be a better decision. Two, the interaction between our totems and other peoples buffs. Sometimes, it’s better to let the pally cast Blessing of Wisdom rather than you dropping Mana Totem.
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)?
They would probably see quite a bit of overhealing. But because of chain heals bouncy, often critty nature, this would probably be true even if I didn’t suck at overhealing. Hopefully they would see a fairly well balanced useage of all my heals. Yes chain heals would probably be 50%-60% of my total spells cast, but the remaining 40%-50% should be fairly equal between my remaining spells.
Haste or Crit and why?
Haste. Haste. Haste. Haste. Haste. Long live haste. Unbuffed, chain heal has a 2.5 second cast time. That can be a painfully long time, especially in fights where movement is critical. Because we lack insta-cast spells, we need to speed up our spells as much as we can.
What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Druids. Healing over time just doesn’t make sense to me.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I use Healbot and totem timers. I live and die by healbot. Totem timers–well I could take it or leave it. Mostly I use it to keep track of my shields and weapon bufs.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
Overall I try to balance things in my gear. But in my gems and enchants I stack the crap out of haste so I can get my chain heals under 2 seconds.
And that’s it. I’m glad I did this survey. It reminded me that there are still quite a few things I could work on (overhealing). I really like that the healing community is reaching out across classes rather than fighting against each other. Discussing how we can work together is much more effective than who is better at what or over/underpowered or why we think our class is being dumped on.
I don’t read a lot of blogs, and even fewer of them primarily healing related, so the person I am tagging is primarily a mage, but he also plays a resto shaman.
Gnomeaggedon (aka Squidly) you have been tagged!
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”
~Fizz (aka Zula)
The Cranky Old Gnome 
Hey Fizz, I popped Natures Swiftness and got a post up yesterday before I knew you were tagging me.
Drop by and leave a note, or link to that one if you like.
I must read more of these… It appears shaman and Driuds don’t work together as well as I thought.