My New Hobby
by Santyn on Mar.06, 2009, under Shaman
In a few previous posts I have mentioned my Shaman that I am slowly leveling. So far I have gotten him up to 70 (almost 71). It has largely been a solo effort, meaning he has been specced Enhancement from level 10. My long term goal has always been to take this guy Resto once he hit level cap. Well, last night I got my first taste of healing.
I was plugging around the Fjorde when i got a friend of mine whispered me asking if I wanted to join in on a Shadow Labs run. Since my Shaman is only 70 he would still get XP from it so I jumped on board. Ended up with a Warrior, a Hunter, two Paladins, and me. We had tanking covered, but none of us were specced as a healer. They asked me if I could heal, so I decided to give it a try. No re-spec. I just threw on the caster gear I had been collecting and dove in.
Now first off, healing on an Enhance Shaman is very simple. You have three heals, Earthliving Weapon, and totems. For totems I ran with the standard compliment of Mana Tide, Windfury, Flametounge, and Strength of earth (might be the wrong name on that one, I can’t remember what it is called for sure). I enchanted both my weapons with Earthliving, and then hammered out heals to keep people topped off.
And you know who died the most? Me. I was so focused on keeping other people topped off that I kept forgetting to heal myself. But, I would rather that I caused my own death than someone else’s.
Except for a few deaths, the run went real well. Everyone said I did a pretty good job healing, especially considering it was my first time and I wasn’t specced for it. And you know what?
I liked it.
Healing offered a completely different way of playing than I have ever done. Target mobs? Nope. As a DPS 90% of the time I assist the tank and fire away. Sure, there are the few times where I need to CC or to pull some fancy moves to save a healer, but not that often these days. As a healer things felt more dynamic. The tank was no longer my boss, telling me who to target and when. I controlled the flow of the group instead of being pulled along. It was great.
Now don’t misunderstand. I love being a Hunter and will more than likely always play one as my main. But seeing the game from a different perspective opens up a completely new way to play and have fun in WoW. One that I intend to take full advantage of.
3 Comments for this entry
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March 6th, 2009 on 10:15 am
Interesting. I have a lvl70 shammy. I leveled her up as enhance. I seemed to know most of the gear as a hunter… also knew that I’d switch to full resto for the utility. I did plenty of enhance main healing along the way. It’s totally different than resto main healing. And resto is MUCH MUCH easier. I still run in and whack a boss from behind in melee.. still interrupt more casts than most melee.. still remember enhance. But I can pull out the plugs if things start going south and save everyone’s bacon.
March 6th, 2009 on 10:18 am
Good healers will always be in demand and its nice to take a break from dps. Though I never thought about the control factor before. That’s an interesting angle, and true that the tank controls the pace and the damage direction–but only at the discretion and ability of the healer.
As for shamanism, if you stick with Enhance you’ll find chain heal MW4-5 in invaluable in raids. And I’ve definitely saved a few boss encounters with a heal on the MT or OT.
Interesting you can heal a same-level encounter as Enhance. Were the other players also 70? Maybe the buffs put in place with 3.0 really did trivialize same-level content?
March 6th, 2009 on 12:46 pm
I can’t speak for Northrend content as a Shaman, but I did run Heroic Nexus with an Enhancement Shaman as the healer. Never had an inkling she wasn’t Resto until she busted out the Feral Spirits. And that was one of the smoothest runs I’ve done in there. No wipes and very few deaths.
I think a lot of it has come down to gear to be honest. As a Shaman, as long as you have the right gear you can fill any of the three roles, just not as effectively as if you were specced for it.