Shaman Healing

I've leveled a shaman up recently, currently 65, and since 60 he's been healing instances.

I found that hotkeying some downranked heals helps out a lot more then just hotkeying your top rank heals and healing, I use my top rank heals, but say I want to conserve mana and don't think the big heal will be worth it. Use a downranked healing wave, there's a chance it will proc ancestral fortitude and it will stack healing way.

Healing Wave downranking is a good choice- hotkeying a rank 3 reduces the cast time by a whole .5 seconds, and it does about the same healing as lesser healing wave and will stack healing way. It also doesn't cost as much mana.

I did underbog right after I theorycrafted shaman healing, elitist jerks helped out a lot. We messed up a pull and pulled 8 guys, with no CC but fears! I got a debuff to drain my mana, scorpid sting or whatever it is, and I was still able to heal by hotkeying some downranks- with water shield on at all times.

Another thing I do is put down a wrath of air totem and pop a +healing trinket right before I use earthshield, it increases the amount healed by earthshield to the point I can focus on healing other party members for a short time, especially on a group of melee DPS with chain heal rank 4. Many Shaman use rank 4 chain heal for raids until things get intense, then they use rank 5. It conserves mana and still gives that initial heal the party needs.

The only thing I usually have to worry about is chain healing and keeping the tank topped- chain heal is overall the most effective heal, lesser healing wave is pretty much useless, it's a fast heal but it doesn't even heal as much as chain heal rank 2 or 3, it doesn't stack healing way and it's best to just use chain heal even if theres no DPS in the area that just got life tooken away. Who knows by the time it goes off you might've saved a DPS's life.

If things get really intense, healer is about to die, send up a few lesser healing waves, then I use rank 8 healing wave so I can keep the tank alive while I cast healing wave rank 11 (soon to be 12). The tank should be topped now. You do not need to spam lesser healing wave if Nature's Swiftness is up and no longer on CD, I use it and then a rank 11 healing wave which usually is all I need. It even procs ancestral fortitude usually.

Earthshield does not always go on the tank, start it out on the tank but imagine you have someone OTing, kiting, or getting hit while trying to cast spells. The OT and/or kite will take far more damage then the tank, and a kite can go out of range to get heals on them. Casting earthshield on a spellcaster getting hit will heal them and possibly cause them to not take any spell interruptions.

Water shield a resto shaman should keep up at all times, since it costs no mana to cast and doesn't have a CD, most shaman just recharge it when there's a snore in healing. The MP5 increase of water shield is to good for a shaman not to use.

Mana tide totem is mostly used for backup when you run low on mana. I used mana tide totem on the underbog run to send that extra heal in- it was enough to send off a few chain heals and a healing wave.

I'm a lvl 69, mostly elemental shammy, and thinking of going resto at 70. I have not done much group healing, so this was very helpful. Thanks!