Updated healing AA's advice?

kierstin · 01-16-2010, 06:06 PM

I'm about to hit 80, I have about 165 AA's, and I'm getting to the point where I want to focus more on my healing in groups than my solo melee spec. But I'm not really sure how I should allocate my points for a healing spec. I'm assuming the wisdom line all the way down to alacrity is a must. Should I go down the AA line to get the +heal crit, and if so should i get rage at the end? Or should I go down the str line to get the pet aoe immunity and pet ward?

Currently in the shaman line: I'm all the way down the Wis line to alacrity, all the way down stamina to get the unconcious heal buff + faster cures, and halfway down the int line for a little bit of casting offense.

In the mystic line I skiped all of the combat arts for my healing spec and picked up all of the +HP buffs, 5 points into bolster, and 3 points into a lot of the crap between, + ancestry.

I've invested a LOT of my points into the ToS lines. Picking up all the +healing and +HP buffs, 5/5 in my improved mana pool, and maxing out my debuff aa's. I can't quite buy into the last tier as i need 170, but I plan to as soon as I can.

...

What i'm wondering is if I am going about this totally wrong. And should focus on being a melee healer and picking up the combat arts I skipped etc, and just not do the ranged caster thing at all. I just figured in a raid setting as a healer I want to be at ranged for most of the fights, and not on top of a raid mob whacking on it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Arcanemundi · 01-16-2010, 08:20 PM

kierstin wrote:

I'm about to hit 80, I have about 165 AA's, and I'm getting to the point where I want to focus more on my healing in groups than my solo melee spec. But I'm not really sure how I should allocate my points for a healing spec. I'm assuming the wisdom line all the way down to alacrity is a must. Should I go down the AA line to get the +heal crit, and if so should i get rage at the end? Or should I go down the str line to get the pet aoe immunity and pet ward?
Currently in the shaman line: I'm all the way down the Wis line to alacrity, all the way down stamina to get the unconcious heal buff + faster cures, and halfway down the int line for a little bit of casting offense.
In the mystic line I skiped all of the combat arts for my healing spec and picked up all of the +HP buffs, 5 points into bolster, and 3 points into a lot of the crap between, + ancestry.
I've invested a LOT of my points into the ToS lines. Picking up all the +healing and +HP buffs, 5/5 in my improved mana pool, and maxing out my debuff aa's. I can't quite buy into the last tier as i need 170, but I plan to as soon as I can.
...
What i'm wondering is if I am going about this totally wrong. And should focus on being a melee healer and picking up the combat arts I skipped etc, and just not do the ranged caster thing at all. I just figured in a raid setting as a healer I want to be at ranged for most of the fights, and not on top of a raid mob whacking on it.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I know every Shaman out there is going to pop a blood vessel when I say this, but I was, and still am, a big fan of the STA line. Herbal Expertise increases you single target cure haste to cap, and the recovery speed boost is nice as well. Coagulate, the end line ability of STA line, gives the entire group (including you) a 1174 unconscious health buff, which is huge. The argument usually brought up against Coagulate is that if your job is to keep a tank up, then the unconscious buff is useless since tanks have no mit when they are unconscious and as a result the extra health will be a drop in the bucket compared to the damage received in that state. While it is true that the tank will take unmitigated damage in the unconscious state, the extra health is still effective in taking some damage. In most situations I believe that the damage taken will be mitigated first while the tank is alive, but it might still make him unconscious, so that argument really doesn't make sense. For example, if your wards eat up 35% of the damage, and the tank's health absorbs 60%, and then he goes unconscious when the remaining 5% gets calculated, Coagulate might keep him alive that extra second it takes to reapply a ward, or for another healer to cast a direct heal. I've seen it happen, especially with other group members like mages that have low mit.

It really depends on what type of raid group you are in most nights. If they put you in a Main Tank or Off Tank group, I would instead spec STR line all the way, and WIS line all the way. STR line gives your dog the AoE immunity proc which I have parsed as proccing a lot of the time, so your tank and melee group members might avoid a short range AoE occasionally. The proc ward from the dog is ok, some Shamans seem to spec more points into the Aura of Haste group haste ability instead though. WIS line gives you Ritual (+32% to heals - macro this to your group heal, or all your heals,) +8 Reuse, and Ritual of Alacrity (RoA.) RoA is one of the most powerful spells a Shaman has access to since we can amp up a tank, or another healer, quite a bit when needed. Macro a tell to this ability to tell the person you cast it on "You got RoA" so they know why they are casting like crazy. You will get a lot of props for that spell if you do, and people will want you in their group more often. If you are in the MT group cast RoA on the tank on pull, then cast it on the other healer when it comes back up later in the fight. Ritual of Magic is important too if you focus on debuffing when you raid. There is alot more info on this in the EQ2Flames forums you can check out also.

Combat Arts are optional really, I would instead focus on debuffing and healing most of the time, and DPS when you feel you aren't doing anything else. Once you get to 200 AA, you might want to move points around so you have all the healing abilities maxed out, and then put the rest of your points into Combat Arts and Shadow Line damage modifiers. Getting a respec mirror made is really important too so you can have a DPS spec and a HPS spec.

SonnyA · 01-18-2010, 11:00 AM

You can get a lot of good info from the primer Banditman has made. It's stickied in this forum.

That being said, here's my 2cp

Get the doggie immunity and RoA from the shaman tree. Int line is a waste. Don't touch that. If you have spare points you want to spend here, use it on the crit heal. (something like this www.thebrasse.com/eq2/aaxp.php?sc=S...000404400000001)

From mystic tree, get ancestry and drop a few points in each of the combat art. With 165 AAs, you can get the combat endline too. If you're not raiding, don't worry about the rez line or the cure line. (something like this www.thebrasse.com/eq2/aaxp.php?c=My...000005000000550). Yeah, Oberon can be used offensively in group settings, if you have the bane warding set bonus.

That would leave you 53 points to spend in the TSO tree. Can't find a calculator for TSO. But get the miti buff increaser (protective prayer) and the combat buff. Then get ward stuff from the TSO shaman line, the group heal and group sta buff enhancer from TSO mystic line and sit back and wait for heal stance.. good stuff

01-16-2010, 08:20 PM	#2
Arcanemundi Server: Antonia Bayle Guild: Electus Vir Rank: Order of Electus Vir ~ Senior Raider Loremaster Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 92	kierstin wrote: I'm about to hit 80, I have about 165 AA's, and I'm getting to the point where I want to focus more on my healing in groups than my solo melee spec. But I'm not really sure how I should allocate my points for a healing spec. I'm assuming the wisdom line all the way down to alacrity is a must. Should I go down the AA line to get the +heal crit, and if so should i get rage at the end? Or should I go down the str line to get the pet aoe immunity and pet ward? Currently in the shaman line: I'm all the way down the Wis line to alacrity, all the way down stamina to get the unconcious heal buff + faster cures, and halfway down the int line for a little bit of casting offense. In the mystic line I skiped all of the combat arts for my healing spec and picked up all of the +HP buffs, 5 points into bolster, and 3 points into a lot of the crap between, + ancestry. I've invested a LOT of my points into the ToS lines. Picking up all the +healing and +HP buffs, 5/5 in my improved mana pool, and maxing out my debuff aa's. I can't quite buy into the last tier as i need 170, but I plan to as soon as I can. ... What i'm wondering is if I am going about this totally wrong. And should focus on being a melee healer and picking up the combat arts I skipped etc, and just not do the ranged caster thing at all. I just figured in a raid setting as a healer I want to be at ranged for most of the fights, and not on top of a raid mob whacking on it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I know every Shaman out there is going to pop a blood vessel when I say this, but I was, and still am, a big fan of the STA line. Herbal Expertise increases you single target cure haste to cap, and the recovery speed boost is nice as well. Coagulate, the end line ability of STA line, gives the entire group (including you) a 1174 unconscious health buff, which is huge. The argument usually brought up against Coagulate is that if your job is to keep a tank up, then the unconscious buff is useless since tanks have no mit when they are unconscious and as a result the extra health will be a drop in the bucket compared to the damage received in that state. While it is true that the tank will take unmitigated damage in the unconscious state, the extra health is still effective in taking some damage. In most situations I believe that the damage taken will be mitigated first while the tank is alive, but it might still make him unconscious, so that argument really doesn't make sense. For example, if your wards eat up 35% of the damage, and the tank's health absorbs 60%, and then he goes unconscious when the remaining 5% gets calculated, Coagulate might keep him alive that extra second it takes to reapply a ward, or for another healer to cast a direct heal. I've seen it happen, especially with other group members like mages that have low mit. It really depends on what type of raid group you are in most nights. If they put you in a Main Tank or Off Tank group, I would instead spec STR line all the way, and WIS line all the way. STR line gives your dog the AoE immunity proc which I have parsed as proccing a lot of the time, so your tank and melee group members might avoid a short range AoE occasionally. The proc ward from the dog is ok, some Shamans seem to spec more points into the Aura of Haste group haste ability instead though. WIS line gives you Ritual (+32% to heals - macro this to your group heal, or all your heals,) +8 Reuse, and Ritual of Alacrity (RoA.) RoA is one of the most powerful spells a Shaman has access to since we can amp up a tank, or another healer, quite a bit when needed. Macro a tell to this ability to tell the person you cast it on "You got RoA" so they know why they are casting like crazy. You will get a lot of props for that spell if you do, and people will want you in their group more often. If you are in the MT group cast RoA on the tank on pull, then cast it on the other healer when it comes back up later in the fight. Ritual of Magic is important too if you focus on debuffing when you raid. There is alot more info on this in the EQ2Flames forums you can check out also. Combat Arts are optional really, I would instead focus on debuffing and healing most of the time, and DPS when you feel you aren't doing anything else. Once you get to 200 AA, you might want to move points around so you have all the healing abilities maxed out, and then put the rest of your points into Combat Arts and Shadow Line damage modifiers. Getting a respec mirror made is really important too so you can have a DPS spec and a HPS spec.

01-16-2010, 06:06 PM	#1
kierstin Champion Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 25	I'm about to hit 80, I have about 165 AA's, and I'm getting to the point where I want to focus more on my healing in groups than my solo melee spec. But I'm not really sure how I should allocate my points for a healing spec. I'm assuming the wisdom line all the way down to alacrity is a must. Should I go down the AA line to get the +heal crit, and if so should i get rage at the end? Or should I go down the str line to get the pet aoe immunity and pet ward? Currently in the shaman line: I'm all the way down the Wis line to alacrity, all the way down stamina to get the unconcious heal buff + faster cures, and halfway down the int line for a little bit of casting offense. In the mystic line I skiped all of the combat arts for my healing spec and picked up all of the +HP buffs, 5 points into bolster, and 3 points into a lot of the crap between, + ancestry. I've invested a LOT of my points into the ToS lines. Picking up all the +healing and +HP buffs, 5/5 in my improved mana pool, and maxing out my debuff aa's. I can't quite buy into the last tier as i need 170, but I plan to as soon as I can. ... What i'm wondering is if I am going about this totally wrong. And should focus on being a melee healer and picking up the combat arts I skipped etc, and just not do the ranged caster thing at all. I just figured in a raid setting as a healer I want to be at ranged for most of the fights, and not on top of a raid mob whacking on it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

01-18-2010, 11:00 AM	#3
SonnyA Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 578	You can get a lot of good info from the primer Banditman has made. It's stickied in this forum. That being said, here's my 2cp Get the doggie immunity and RoA from the shaman tree. Int line is a waste. Don't touch that. If you have spare points you want to spend here, use it on the crit heal. (something like this www.thebrasse.com/eq2/aaxp.php?sc=S...000404400000001) From mystic tree, get ancestry and drop a few points in each of the combat art. With 165 AAs, you can get the combat endline too. If you're not raiding, don't worry about the rez line or the cure line. (something like this www.thebrasse.com/eq2/aaxp.php?c=My...000005000000550). Yeah, Oberon can be used offensively in group settings, if you have the bane warding set bonus. That would leave you 53 points to spend in the TSO tree. Can't find a calculator for TSO. But get the miti buff increaser (protective prayer) and the combat buff. Then get ward stuff from the TSO shaman line, the group heal and group sta buff enhancer from TSO mystic line and sit back and wait for heal stance.. good stuff