VenusGaming

image via worldofwarcraft.com

As I was leveling my resto shaman to 80, both the advice from another resto shaman friend and from Max-DPS.com was the same: rely on Earth Shield, Riptide/Chain Heal, and Healing Wave. I was told that Lesser Healing Wave was just not enough to keep a tank alive. But along a different wind, I also heard that Lesser Healing Wave was a resto shaman’s best friend.

I took the latter advice, and found LHW to be pretty damned useful. But I’m the kind of person who’s willing to try something out, and so I gave the Riptide-Chain Heal-Healing Wave an attempt in heroic CoT: Stratholme, perhaps one of the easiest heroics out there. Sure, Healing Wave crits for 10k+. . . but healing on a slow heal was fail. As soon as I switched back to my usual reliance on LHW, things were back in business. And looking at Wow Web Stat reports, it seems I’m not the only one to agree.

Why does Lesser Healing Wave work?

It starts with Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave. Making your LHWs hit for 20% more on your tank, who you are keeping Earth Shielded, brings its healing power up greatly. Let’s take a look at LHW and HW’s base healing at 80:

Healing Wave heals 3255 average, on a 3 second cast. That’s 1085 HPS.

Lesser Healing Wave heals 1720 average, on a 1.5 second cast. That’s 1146 HPS.

Now, add in another 20% to LHW, which brings its base average up to  2064. That makes LHW 1376 HPS - untalented, not factoring in +healing - only glyphed. That’s almost 200 HPS more than HW, for 10% less base mana (talented, Healing Wave comes out to a 1302 HPS, still less effective). Start adding in crits to the factor - and in the same time I can hit a 10k Healing Wave, I can hit an 8k and a 7k Lesser Healing Wave. Even talented, Healing Wave can’t make up for that.

Of course, Riptide and Chain Heals are also included in your healing.  I also recommend Healing Stream totem over Mana Stream for general fights, as the healing gained for the party (I hit about 210 a tick on Healing Stream) is far more than the mana you’d gain from Mana Stream, and reduces the healing you’ll need to do on your party as a whole, letting you focus more on the tank. Try to save your Riptide cooldowns for either a Riptide+Chain Heal combo, or as a quick heal for the DPS.

Figure out the rotation, and you will likely be one of the most demanded healers around.