Shaman Healing for 6.0.2 and WoD

With 6.0.2 patch coming out tomorrow I decided to take a quick peek at my shaman in the PTR before things go live. Our guild is going to be raiding Mythic 20 mans on and I want to be prepared.

So here are the changes for shaman, in particular to restoration shamans:

New for Restoration:

 Ascendance: The Shaman transforms into a Water Ascendant for 15 sec. While in this form, all healing done is duplicated and distributed evenly among nearby allies.

 Purification: You gain 5% more of the Mastery stat from all sources.

Changes for Restoration:

 Chain Heal: 
Now Restoration only. Now 14.2% of base mana, down from 22.5%. Heals the friendly target for 
162.5% of Spell power), then jumps to heal the most injured nearby targets
. Healing is reduced by 10% after each jump. Heals 4 total targets. - Mana cost lowered and healing has been reduced by 10% instead of 15% per jump. Overall a good thing for chain heal spamming!
 Earth Shield: 
Now 12.6% of base mana, down from 19.0%. Protects the target with an earthen shield, increasing the effectiveness of Shaman healing spells on that target by 20%, and causing attacks to heal the shielded target for 0 (+ 
63%). 9 charges. Lasts 10 min. This effect can only occur once every few seconds. Earth Shield can only be placed on one target at a time, 
and only one of your Elemental Shields can be active on you at once. - Mana cost has been lowered, which is always good. The big change here, and I'm certain all resto shamans are as excited about this as I am, more than one shield can be placed on a target!!! NO MORE SHIELD OVERRIDES!
 Healing Stream Totem: Summons a Water Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster that heals 
an injured party or raid member within 40 yards for [((Spell power * 
0.2571) * 1)] every 2 sec. Lasts 15 sec. - Mana cost has been reduced and so has the amount it heals for by 50%. Def not happy about that :(
 Healing Wave: 
Now 10.4% of base mana, down from 19.5%. Heals a friendly target for (
412.5% of Spell power). - Mana cost reduced. This is our Greater Healing Wave renamed. We are now forced to use this spell, and if you are like me I always used Healing Wave for single target and I could spam it all day with how mana efficient it is. Now it's either this or Healing Surge. UGH...
 Restorative Waves: 
Your heals increase allies' maximum health by 10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of their health.
 Resurgence: Values have changed and this is no longer affected by Greater Healing Wave. 
Your direct heal criticals refund you mana: (812 * 100 / 100) mana from 
Healing Wave, (812 * 0.6 * 100 / 100) mana from Healing Surge, Riptide, or Unleash Life
, and (812 * 0.333 * 100 / 100) mana from 
Chain Heal. - This hasn't been changed other than having the heals they removed taken off the tool tip.
 Riptide: 
Now 9.0% of base mana, down from 12.0%. Heals a friendly target for 
138% of Spell power) and another 
180% of Spell power) over 18 sec. Your Chain Heal spell is 25% more effective when the primary target is affected by your Riptide. - Mana reduced here as well and the initial heal has been increased by 70% and heal-over-time has been reduced by 20%. I can deal with that, especial when it's glyphed.
 Spiritual Insight: Increases your mana pool by 400%. - Unchanged really since hit will no longer be in the game that part of the tooltip has been removed.
 Spiritwalker's Grace: 
Now Elemental and Restoration only. - Same as always, exept that enhancement shamans can't use it.
 Telluric Currents: Your attunement to natural energies causes your Lightning Bolt spell to 
cost no mana. - This is sexy and about damn time!
 Tidal Waves: When you cast Chain Heal or Riptide, you gain the Tidal Waves effect, which reduces the cast time of your
nextHealing Wave by 
20%
or increases the critical effect chance of your 
next Healing Surge spell by 30%. 2 charges. - Reduced from 30% to 20%.

Changed Talents: Not going over the new level 100 talents yet because there is so much to cover for the current patch.

 Ancestral Guidance: For the next 10 sec, 
20% your direct damage and healing is converted to healing on up to 3 nearby injured party or raid members. - Down from 40% and 60%. I use Rushing Streams here for the most part, so I'm not too concerned about this change.
 Ancestral Swiftness: ncreases haste by 5% and attack speed by 5% at all times. When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. becomes instant. - Same as before just included attack speed with the new consolidations.
 Conductivity: When
 Your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Earth Shock and Stormstrike increase the duration of your Healing Rain by 4.00 sec, up to a maximum increase of 30 sec. - Can't use pew pew spells to make this last longer... suckage.
 Echo of the Elements: 
Your spells and abilities have a chance to 
trigger Echo of the Elements. 
Echo of the Elements causes your next short cooldown spell or ability (Lava Burst, Frost Shock, or Earthquake for Elemental; Lava Lash, Stormstrike, or Fire Nova for Enhancement; Riptide, Unleash Life, Purify Spirit for Restoration) to not incur its cooldown. - No longer duplicates your spell, instead it removed a CD. I may try this out, although the haste increase from ancestral swiftness is prob still better. Could work nicely on a fight like Thok with Purify Spirit.
 Elemental Mastery: 
2 min cooldown, up from 1.5 min.
 Elemental Blast: Harness the raw power of the elements, dealing (
145% of Spell power) Elemental damage and increasing your Specialization [Agility (Enhancement only)] Critical Strike, Haste, 
Multistrike or Mastery by 137 for 8 sec. 
Restoration: Also increases your Spirit by 257 for 8 sec. - Hasn't changed, only the tooltip and the addition of a spirit buff for resto shamans.

Unleashed Fury now has three spell IDs, one for each specialization, instead of one lengthy tooltip for all:

 Unleashed Fury, Restoration: Empowers your Unleash Life, increasing the healing from you next single-target heal on that ally by 50%. - Only the tooltip has changed.

New Glyphs: Only one worth mentioning for resto, or any shaman really, is:

 Glyph of Ghostly Speed: Ghost Wolf grants an additional 60% movement speed, but can no longer be used while in combat.This effect is disabled in battlegrounds and arenas and cannot be combined with other temporary speed bonuses. - Yes, please! I'd like to get to Thok fast after a wipe! TYVM lol

Changed Glyphs:

 Glyph of Chaining: Increases the jump distance of your Chain Heal spell by 100%. Now Restoration Only - OH YEAH! 
 Glyph of Cleansing Waters: When you dispel a harmful Magic or Curse effect from an ally, you also heal the target for 4% of your maximum health. - Down from 5%.
 Glyph of Totemic Recall: Causes your Totemic Recall ability to return 25% additional mana when recalling a totem. - Down from 100%.
 Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace: Now Elemental and Restoration Only - No change, but only used by resto.
 Glyph of Totemic Vigor: Increases the health of your totems by 2% of your maximum health. - Down from 5%.

Class Abilities: Class ability changes.

 Ancestral Spirit: Now costs 4.0% of base mana, down from 84.3%. - 
 About damn time!

 Grace of Air: Empowering winds swirl around the Shaman, granting all nearby party and raid members 141 Mastery and 5% haste. - Added haste!
 Healing Rain: Healing rains blanket the area targeted by the Shaman, restoring [((16.3882% of Spell power) + (16.3882% of Spell power)) * 2.5] health to up to 6 allies in the area over 10 sec. - A bit of a nerf to healing rain, but we'll live ;)

 Healing Stream Totem: Now 8.6% of base mana, down from 23.5%.
 Healing Surge: Now 20.7% of base mana, down from 34.3%. Heals a friendly target for 412.5% of Spell power) - Slight mana reduction.
 Hex: Now 1.7 sec cast, up from 1.5

 Wind Shear: Disrupts the target's concentration with a burst of wind, interrupting spellcasting and preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 3 sec. - Threat reduction was removed.

This pretty much covers all the changes that apply primarily to restoration shamans for 6.0.2. For the most part, it seems that shaman healing is the same as far as the mechanics are concerned. We'll have to make a few modifications to our healing style due to the lack of smart healing, but since we didn't get any instant heals affected by the new cast times, "yanet "S" keys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" <---- Izzy :D lozlwafflesncheese, it won't be as big of an adjustment as other healers. This ^ is what I have to deal with on a daily basis from my husband lol.

Tomorrow night Izzy and I will be raiding with the guild 20 man Mythic. Izzy may be Twitching it at 11:30 pm server time (Bleeding Hollow) which is 8:30 pm PST. Here is the link for his TwitchTV in case you want to drop by to check it out: http://www.twitch.tv/drdopepeddles

The guild is currently 12/14H, so we should be able to down a few bosses on heroic even with the new changes and the extra people being added to the current group.

I can't wait for all the bag space I will have tomorrow and once again being able to experience the pre-expansion event. Good luck to all of you starting your Mythic raiding tomorrow, feel free to drop by and let me know how it goes!

It's Been Too Long...

It's been 5 months since I last posted and it feels like an eternity. We have a lot of catching up to do...

We moved to the Seattle Washington area and we are absolutely loving it out here! It is amazing... the weather, the scenery, the location, we couldn't be happier. And so due to all the planning and the move I've been MIA. But I'm back and ready to get this blog back on track!

We've taken a break from WoW for the past few months, but we're very excited to get back into it when 6.0 comes out as we'll be Mythic Raiding with our guild and I will no longer have to lead a group. YAY! It was fun, but I can live without the drama of it all. So we're looking forward to the new changes in game and 20 man raiding!

Heroic Galakras down for the count...

I'm not sure which fight I've hated more, Garrosh or Heroic Galakras. It's one of those fights were a single thing that goes wrong could easily wipe the raid. Since the raid is split into 2 groups for the portion of the time it's hard to recover if someone dies. Not to mention how it often it wants to teleport a tank or healer off the towers lol.

*Imagine awesome screenshot of raid group and Galakras here*

We ended up 2 healing it and towards the end it definitely got messy, so messy in fact we only had 3 people left alive. Should be easier next week now that we've got a better handle on positioning.

So for this week we're going to be working on Heroic Protectors which sounds a lot easier than Galakras, so hopefully we get them down with less issues.

And of course, I completely forgot to take a screenshot. So I've posted a pink sticky note to my monitor which says

"World of Logs

+

Screenshots!

DO IT NAAAUUUU!!!!!"

I'm hoping that will help lol. I did remember to upload the logs though, and here they are for anyone that may want to see our group in action :)

Busy, busy, busy...

Real life has been so hectic lately I've had no time to post about my life in WoW. I recently boosted my baby shaman in Aggramar which has been awesome because she went from 483 ilvl to 515 in less than a week. I'm working on her as I type, trying to get her to 531 so I can do Flex 4 with Uprising tonight. She's been very fortunate with gear, so hopefully I can get a few more pieces today.

I've almost given up on my DK entirely, I just can't seem to have any luck acquiring gear for her :(  I'll keep trying, but my focus has shifted entirely to the baby shaman, who I'm having a blast playing!

In real life, Izzy and I have been working hard to get our business up and running. And thus far it's going well, with a little more work on a weekly basis I can stay home with the kids without financial worries! Most of the work we've gotten so far has been by word of mouth, so now I'm working on our Etsy shop and Facebook page and soon our website. They are a work in progress, but you get the picture.

I was recently asked to make a guild banner for Uprising for Warlords of Draenor, but I'll wait for them to put it up on the site before showing that to you all :) I'm very please with how it turned out though and I hope the guild likes it as well.

Anyway, back to grinding LFRs and drawing up designs while I wait for queues to pop!

Lots and lots of changes!

After my little rant about Garrosh, just before Christmas, we gave him another go and got him to 2%. Not without some issues of course. Our tank and co-GM decided to voice his opinion about me, a healer, killing the engineers. Mind you we have no issues on phase 1, but he doesn't like me doing it because it's not the way he does it in his progression group.

To make this long and dramatic story short, they demoted me and took over my group to prove some kind of point about their way being the right way to do Garrosh. Their changes made absolutely no difference what-so-ever. People were still dying to the same things. So after 3 hours of raiding we finally killed him, no surprise there seeing as it was bound to happen with the 2% attempt the week before. It seems I wasn't being a team player because I was being told by a so called experienced raider how to kill Garrosh and I just didn't want to listen. So the fact that I've done my research and the fact that he could never give me a valid reason for any of the changes he wanted us to make were not acceptable reasons for not doing things their way. I tried to stick it out a few days after that, but things just weren't the same. So Izzy and I decided to leave the group and join a friend's guild. It was the best decision we could have made. And to my surprise most of team came along with us.

I hate the guild dramas and such, and it seems I've had my fair share of them lately, but what they pulled was completely uncalled for. Everything happens for a reason though, and we're very happy where we are right now. I have full control of my group and yet the GM and officers have been very helpful in filling in on alts and such while we try to get our group going again. As it stands right now, we have one more core spot to fill and hopefully we can get back on track. 

Haters will hate...

As some of you know my raid team has been together for 5 weeks now and this is our second week on Garrosh, with no kill yet :( I can tell people are starting to get frustrated, probably because we've killed everything else with much ease and now it feels like we're hitting a brick wall now. We've spoiled ourselves into believing that we would breeze through Garrosh as well. I believe that with this weeks gear upgrades we'll get him.

I myself was dying to stupid things last night and it has a bit to do with the bit of gossip I got from Izzy during raid. Let me give you a little back-story so you understand:

When I left group 2 (solely due to their change in raid days) and made this group, I made the decision of not having any alts in the group. Although I have no issues with alts I don't feel that the dedication is there as it is with a main character. I was able to find core raiders except for 1 tank before our first raid. The GM and her boyfriend, Xinu, offered their alts to help as we needed them until we were set up. Both of their mains are in the guild's main raid group and Xinu is actually their raid-leader. Our entire group had about a 540 ilvl when we started and we've all worked hard for our gear and for those boss kills. After many days of looking for a tank for our group Xinu told us that he would dedicate the time on his monk alt to our group and so it has been for the past 5 weeks. Which leads me to last night's gossip. Group two is run by the GM's son (who's also in the guild's main raid group) and his girlfriend, and while we've progressed to Garrosh, they have been stuck between Galakras and Shamans for the past 6 weeks. They don't have a consistent group, many alts and end up melee heavy a lot of the times, none of which is any of our fault. And so now the GM's son's gf feels the need to complain and pretty much talk shit, saying that Xinu, who is on his alt and just as under-geared as the rest of us when we started, is carrying us. She feels that he should do the same for her group, which I don't get because they hate him anyway, but I guess not enough if it means a stupid boss kill. Oh but wait, her bf is in the main progression group as well, and his alt is in group 2, so why isn't he carrying them all the way to Garrosh? Could it have something to do with the fact that one person can't carry an entire group? 

It's very upsetting for me to hear this because even though I left group 2, I have continued to recruit for them in hopes of getting them consistent raiders. I certainly don't wish them bad, never have. When our group started there was talk of friendly competition within our own groups chatter, never in guild chat and never in a malicious way. When we passed shamans our competition shifted to the guild's main raid group (who are now 3/14H) and that kept us motivated to push forward.

So now after 6 weeks of having a dedicated group we are at risk of losing our tank because this woman is jealous that we are at Garrosh and her group isn't. It has a lot more to do with the family dynamics than anything else, and I hate the fact that it's starting to affect my raid team. How bad will it get when we do get our Garrosh kill and start working on heroics?

Have you ever had to deal with family issues within your guild ranks? How do you deal with people like this, who don't seem to be happy unless everyone is miserable like they are? I'm more determined than ever now to have my team, group 3, succeed!

OMG, they know I have a blog now!!!

So last night in the middle of a raid boss fight I notice some chatter on guild chat and I read just enough to see someone post about how they joined the guild because of my blog! My first thought was "cool, someone actually reads my blog!" And then the panic set in "omg, what have I said in my blog that could affect me in this guild!" LOL Of course there is nothing, because there is nothing bad to say about this group of people. They are the friendliest bunch I've ever met. They love doing things together and pitching in to help each other when they can. They raid new and old content together, they pvp, level alts, you name it. I sincerely couldn't be happier with my new home on WoW. In case anyone is interested in joining just send a tell to Kaliapy on Bleeding Hollow horde side and I'd be more than happy to invite you to the guild. So anyway, Ripclaw, next time you're on I hope we have more of a chance to chat!

I am proud to say that my raid group (group 3) is now 12/14 SoO with Paragons of the Klaxxi at 35% or so! I couldn't be happier with the progression we've made in 3 weeks. And I think we've been a little off cause we've had some pugs and alts come in to fill due to the holidays. I have no doubts that we'll be seeing Garrosh by our second raid night this week! I can taste the heroics!!! :P

And last but not least, yesterday was our elemental shaman, Verbalm's birthday. He turned the big "30" and Izzy and I decided to get him a Royal Satchel to help him celebrate!

Guild hopping?...

I really hate switching guilds too often, but I had to. The guild I joined when I server transferred has a little clique that I felt like I just couldn't get into. My intentions weren't to leave, but simply find a group that I can raid with casually n a weekly basis with. Last week while I spammed trade for such a group I got a reply from a shaman named Diamond who convinced me that I should join his guild's second 10 man raid group. He convinced me to join a team that was only 2 bosses into SoO!!! How he managed that is beyond me. I know I'm only 10/14, but 2/14 O.o, I can do that with a pug! But something about they way he spoke of his guild drew me in and I joined and hoped for the best.

I did my first run with them on Saturday night and we're already 6 bosses in with a good feeling that more will die tonight! I'm very happy I made the change. These guys are great! I was immediately made to feel welcome, a part of the team, it's been great thus far. I'm very happy that i made the change and look forward to progressing with this wonderful group of people!

Have you ever felt like an outsider in a guild? Did you stick with it or look for another place to call home?