Healing in UlduarFollow

Well I really didn't see this coming. With the patch notes and the change to manatide/BoW I figured we'd have some major mana issues, but so far I'm through Vezax on 10 man and 10 bosses down in 25 man without any serious mana problems.

This problem I a'm seeing, however, is simply the lack of effective healing I can do. On most boss fights, especially 10 mans, LHW is now my main heal. It's not really that people aren't grouped up enough to make CH effective, it's that the long casting time of CH doesn't cut it a lot of the time. You have to move so much and damage is so bursty that heal>move>heal is the way to go right now.

I feel that this puts the sham into a backseat role to other healers, especially pallys. We have no glyphs that cater to this play style. The LHW glyph is only slightly helpful in 10 man when I'm healing one of the tanks, in 25 man it's useless for the most part. I'm really wanting a new glyph that allows LHW to shine more. Maybe something like a Glyph of Ancestral Awakening that makes it proc all the time with LHW or makes it heal for 30% more if your LHW crits. The healing in Ulduar makes a holy pallys healing style shine with the multi target, quick cast heals and we're quickly becoming a mana tide carrier and that's it.

I'm not saying I can't cast it, I'm saying is more beneficial to the raid to do quick spot heals rather then longer AoE heals a lot of the time, 10 man especially. 25 man it really depends on the boss. On Razorscale LHW was just over 80% of my healing, Kologarn was about 50/50, and CH was much more useful on Mimiron.

A little while ago there was a discussion here about the merits (or lack thereof) of Ancestral Awakening where I pretty much bash the talent into the ground.

My, how times change.

I've since respecced into Ancestral Awakening since 3.1 because I'm having more or less the same experiences as DarkHybridX. The XT-002 fight alone is reason enough to take it, but there are several others where Chain Heal just does not do you much good at all. I find myself casting Lesser Healing Wave more than I ever have in the past and I am just getting absolutely rocked on the healing meters by every other class, a particular sore spot for me since our "best" healer is a Holy Paladin and he's a complete jerk.

Edited, Apr 25th 2009 7:45am by Gaudion

My experience is that I remain in the top 3 healers in 25 mans, and generally in the last 1 or 2 healers for over-heals. My effective healing in Ulduar is actually BETTER than it is in Naxx due to the movement, frequently I'm the only healer near some target, and that means I don't get beat to the punch by other healers spamming faster heals. It is harder, but I don't think our effectiveness is reduced.