WoW IRC Dev Chat

[Treesh]

Shamans can main heal in blues and greens if you have 200 potions, enough CC to reduce each fight to one at a time, and want to drink up from no mana after every pull.
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Mogo has almost never had to drink a mana potion when she is the only healer. Yes, CC helps a lot (it helps any healer out), but you can still heal through more than one critter at a time as long as there isn't a ton of shadow and arcane damage being thrown about. Mana tide totem, the trinket that summons an ancient mana spring totem, and yes, even that piddly piece of crap regular mana spring totem all help keep your mana up. Physical damage can be mitigated by stoneskin totem, fire, frost and nature can be mitigated by the corresponding resist totems (yes, this means that if there's a lot of fire thrown around too you can't have your mana regen totems up). If there are folks in your group that got hurt but aren't still taking damage, bandage them or ask them to bandage themselves. You can also use crystal restore to give a tiny HoT on folks. If you're specced for it, nature's swiftness can help keep your tank up if you start falling behind on the heals. If you're tauren, warstomp to buy time. If your cloth wearers are getting pounded on, earthshock to get them off the squishy until the tank or offtank can come over and get it off of you. In Mogo's caster gear, she's got almost 6000 mana and about 3100 or 3200 health unbuffed. Those are better stats than Aleri (my priest) had when she started playing in the big kid instances. Mogo is only wearing blues and greens. Frequently, I'm the only healer in the group with her and we don't often get tons of CC. Does it get rough? You bet it does! Sometimes someone in the group dies (AoEing mages are tough to keep alive for a shaman), but very rarely does being a shaman healer cause a complete wipe. But I absolutely refuse to listen to folks who say shaman just can't heal. You spec and gear them right, and they're right in there keeping the group alive and kicking. It has gotten harder to be main/solo healer in the end instances because of the shadow and arcane damage being thrown around, but it's still completely possible. It takes skill not only on the healer's part, but on the rest of the group as well. Do I main heal in pickup groups with Mogo? Very rarely, but I very rarely put up with that crap on my priest as well.

Edit: I was a bit off on Mogo's health and mana in caster gear. She's got 3297 health and 5486 mana. I must have looked at her mana pool when she had the mark of the chosen effect on. And btw, she's dressed all in mail. Doesn't have any leather or cloth on to help with her healing or mana pool, but she has been lucky with drops. :)