ICC Index - Healing as a Shaman

Morning blog lovers!!

Its Monday...

Don't worry, I am sad too. The holidays are over and if you are still on some sort of vacation, then I think I speak for everyone when I say I hate you. Only in a jealous way though...you are pretty cool other then that.

So you might have remembered me doing something very similar with Ulduar. Well, I started that about 4-5 days before I took a few month hiatus and when I returned I didn't continue with it.

However!!!

I have no plans to quit the game anytime soon, I am hopelessly addicted just like you. I will be talking about all the trash and bosses from the view point of a resto shaman and (the) my way best way to deal with them. I will also be going over anything that I deem important to know from that prospective as well.

Such as...

• What stats should I be shooting for in the 10 man ICC?
• What stats should I be shooting for in the 25 man ICC?
• What should my stats look like before I step into ICC 10/25?
• What totems, buffs, mods, alcoholic drink should I get for the raid?
• Any tricks or this is how I did it and it worked that I come across.
• What kind of gear should I look forward to in ICC?
• Anything else that comes to mind

Currently my guild is 4/4 in ICC 10 and 3.95/4 in ICC25 lol. We got Deathbringer to less then 5% two separate times this pass lockout and I know that he is going to die this week. I will change that 3.95/4 to 4/4 FOR SURE.

that was alot of fours...my apologizes

Continuing!

What stats should I have before I start ICC 10?

Before I get into stats and what to go for, you need to know what is our number 1 stat. If you ask a group of 10 man resto shaman raiders, I bet you would get 3 answers.

• Spell power
• Haste
• mp5

Now, there are some very clear cut lines on how to gear your shaman. The math guys did alot of work and testing over at elitist jerks and came up with the following.

Haste = 1.5
Spell Power = 1.0
mp5 = 1.0
Crit = 0.8
Intel = 0.6

The numbers are called Healing Equivalency Points or HEP. Its very simple, the higher your HEP score is, the better of a healer you can be....to a point. I say that because you still have to balance your stats. You can't just rock all haste, sp, and crit gear. You would run out of mana during boss encounters and that would make you a healer without mana, or what I like to call completely and utterly useless.

Before I go any further with talking about 10 man raiding, I want to make a clear line between the following.

• Are you in a 10 man raiding guild that raids 10 man ICC
• Are you in a 25 man raiding guild that also raids 10 man ICC

There is quite a large difference. If you are in a 25 man guild that raids 10 man ICC, all your dps should be very high, especially for the first wing. Not only that, but you as the healer will have much higher stats and your gear should be a much higher item level.

Even though the 25 man raider should be focusing in more on the HEP values of haste and therefore gemming for it, that does not mean that a healer in the 10 man only guild doesn't need more mp5 then haste. Therefore they are gemming and getting their hands on as much mp5 as they can.

That being said, my situation is of that of my second option; I am in a 25 man raiding guild that also raids 10 man ICC. There for I have a metric ton of haste and spell power. Due to the way my gear is currently, I am coming dangerous close to the "do not pass" line on mp5 for a demanding 10 man like ICC.

We also run a two healer, two tank, six dps setup to maximize our dps. I highly recommend running with two healers, even if you are just a 10 man guild. The best situation would be to have one of your healers go dps if they have some decent gear for it. If you run into wipe after wipe, he or she can always go back to healing to see if that will help. I do believe that every boss in ICC will be able to be 2 man or 3 man healed. It just depends on your raid setup and if the other members of your raid can pick up the slack and not fail (i.e. high dps for gear level, not standing in fire, not going out of LOS of healer, focus firing, ect.)

Now that I have got that off my mind...lets get back to what I originally wanted to say in this section...

WTF kind of stats should I have before ICC 10??

This is what I would recommend for a 2 healer setup in ICC 10. All of these numbers are completely unbuffed, meaning no totems.

Spell Power = ~2400-2600. Spell power equals throughput. Throughput keeps everyone alive and allows you to do everything better.

Mp5 = ~350-400 mp5 while casting. If you are in a 10 man only guild and only have access to mp5 gear, I would probably shoot for more along the lines of 450-500 mp5 as a base. That way with your water shield, buffs, and totems, you should be around 650-700 mp5 which is more then enough. Do your own testing, see what works for you. It is hard for me to get a good number for this in a 10 man only guild. If you have any suggestions, please write a comment and we can talk about it.

Haste = ~575-600. This shouldn't be that hard to reach. Just because you are raiding a 10 man and not in 25 man, doesn't mean that haste isn't our numbero uno stat. It very much is and I wouldn't be satisfied until it was around 820ish. That way your chain heal will be 2 seconds without our totems. 575-600 is the starting number. 820 is a number to aim towards and will come later on with gear. Remember, keep your stats balance and find a good number for you and your raid setup.

Mana (intel) = ~20000-22000. Again, should be hard to reach with gear. You should not have to gem for intel and if you do, then you might want to take another look at your gear for some upgrades. Now remember, intel is a very good stat for us, just not in the top three anymore.

10 intel = 5.5 mp5 for a 5 min fight. It also gives a static 3.3 crit and 1.8 spell power.

We are not Paladins, do not gem for intel unless you just don't have the gear for it. If that is the case, like I said before...I doubt your gear is ready for ICC 10 before the nerfbat comes.

Ofcourse, prove me wrong! Let me know about it. Give me details.

Crit = ~27-30%. You know you love some crit. You love to see your chain heal go off and hit 4 targets, three of which crit. That also means that Ancestral Healing proc'd giving everyone 10% less physical dmg taken. It also procs Ancestral Awakening which heals the lowest raid member. Its good stuff, but I wouldn't get more then 30-31% in a 10 man.

WTB totems - 25g per raid member - PST

Wouldn't that be AMAZING!?! hah. Thinking about it now I take that back, there would be over-population in Shaman. It would be like Warlocks TBC all over again.

/puke

Back to the subject, Totems! Yes, we have them. They are our calling card and they give the raid a substantial amount buffs. However, I see so many shaman not paying attention to what totems they are laying down or nothing caring. Being a former Holy Paladin back in TBC, if someone didn't have their kings / might / STFU....I would get 10 tells from every person of that class telling me about it. Yet, when it comes to totems....noone complains about the missing buffs totems provide. Its rather intriguing.

Now, I give lead way to my dps Shaman of WoW. They need to their totems to buff their dps output and if the rest of the raid benefits then its icing on the cake.

mmm....cake....

/slap

DAMN! Guy can't think of some cake? SOB!

Resto shaman on the other hand should be all about benefiting the raid, especially if you trust in your skill / gear to get the job at hand done.

Here are the rules. Learn them, love them, don't be that Shaman...

These come straight from the top. This isn't just me thinking I know what is best in all raiding situations. Due note that if there is alot of movement or an encounter that involves alot of spreading out, its ok to drop the same totems to make sure everyone is always in the coverage zone.

AIR:

1. If there isn't a Frost Death Knight or Enhancement Shaman, drop Windfury

2. Otherwise drop Wrath of Air

Earth:

1. If there isn't an Enhancement Shaman or a Death Knight, drop Strength of the Earth

2. Otherwise drop Stoneskin, which also stacks with Paladin's Devo aura

Water:

1. If there isn't a Paladin for Blessing of Wisdom, drop Mana Spring.

2. Otherwise drop Healing Stream. With my gear its 475ish hp a tick. Eat your heart out Druids.

3. Dropping the cleansing totem is situation and should go without saying, but just incase you forgot you had it or something...I'll mention it.

Fire:

1. If there isn't an Enhancement Shaman, Elemental Shaman, or Demonology Warlock, drop Flametongue.

2. Eh...if you want another one you can drop searing or something. I like to save the mana truthfully.

Again, remember about the coverage area of the encounter and if you are going to have to drop duplicate totems to ensure coverage.

Feel free to drop a comment to talk about your thoughts or anything you are unsure of. Or if you think that I got it wrong, let me know.

WTFspaghetti is here for YOU!

Until next time I'm WTFout!!!!