So I started levelling this one from 110, I main a resto shaman, and do fairly well with him, but I was curious about the meta healing spec :-).
I understand that Feral Affinity is used in dungeons. I am trying to get used to it, but have some questions.
1- why is Balance that different as in, why is this a no go? It is ranged for one, you can put dots on the group, and well, for me basically fighting ranged makes more sense.
2- How best to get in and out of feral form? I have my healing skills set to the feral action bar, so I can easily go back to healing form, is there also a way to do the opposite, or do I always have to manually press the cat form? Haven’t tried it yet, but you can’t out a feral skill in your resto action bar as well?
To answer your first question, when looking at the difference of Balance affinity and Feral affinity. To get anything out of either talent dps wise, you will still have to shapeshift due to Starsurge and Lunarstrike in balance affinity, and cat abilities in catform. So to deal dps in any, you still have to shapeshift.
Though the reason you pick Feral affinity for dungeons, is because the aoe potential it has, compared to Balance affinity.
To give you an example.
Feral Affinity has gives you Rake, Rip, and Swipe, and Bite.
Balance affinity gives you Starsurge and Lunarstrike.
If we compare the Aoe abilities you get from each talent. In my case, when i switched between each affinity, Did dmg with ONLY Sunfire, and each Aoe ability (Lunarstrike and Swipe). With Lunarstrike i reached 21kdps peak, sitting at 19kdps. And 30kdps peak with swipe, sitting at 25kdps.
Feral affinity also gives your more management in bleeds, because of Rip, Rake, and your Sunfire and Moonfire. TLDR: Cat deals more dmg.
To answer you second question.
Having catform abilities set to actionbar, will indeed mean you can use healing abilities on other actionbars. to quickly and easier exit catform. When you say “clicking” i do hope that you mean keybind clicking, cause shapeshifting as a druid by clicking is FAR from optimal.
I have ALL of my shapeshifts bound to mousewheel scrolls, and have had since MoP. How you decide to bind it is up to you ofcourse.
Unfortunately you cannot use a cat ability to quickly enter catform though, you HAVE TO use Shapeshift Form Cat.
Cheers mate, makes sense, I just need to get used to Feral. I main elemental shaman, but I do also have 2 other shamans, I have issues with enhancement, since I’m just not good at melee.But I do see your point, maybe I’d just spec balance whilst levelling, since he takes lots of hits now, and Boomkin form has more defense.
If you’re leveling as resto, i’d suggest still going Feral. Due to the bigger dmg output. The ekstra defense from moonkin form isn’t alot better than extra dmg from feral.
Personally I don’t really like either of them, if I’m healer I’d rather take guardian, but if it’s something easy like a normal dungeon on max level I prefer balance affinity over feral because I don’t like having to switch between melee and ranged.
Guardian affinity is a fine choice, if there is a lot of healing needed and not much time to do much damage other than Moonfire & Sunfire.
Though in content where there can be times i don’t need to heal anyone. i find it incredibly boring, and find myself irrelevant if i only try to deal damage through Solar Wrath and dots. Catform gives the opportunity to do more damage than what you usually would, without it.
And i don’t like dealing less damage than what i am capable of.
You can play whatever you want but feral affinity will win out always. Its superior in every way compared to balance affinity. In either case you would have to shapeshift to get use of the extra abilities anyway. Might as well use the better option and learn to deal with it if you are doing m+
Balance affinity barely does more than just out of form solar wrath spam with dots up.
For questing you dont need dr. You put some hots up on yourself, pull the world, sunfire, swipe spam, things die. Lot faster and more convenient than delayed casts due to melee hits with balance affinity.
Or might as well go boomkin for real.
As a cat you still have sunfire and moonfire to use and swipe deals a lot of aoe compared to lunar strike. It is also more mobile which is really nice in a dungeon setting.
Just get used to going in melee when possible and you can also stand back when necessary to heal and jump back in in a second.
I really wouldnt go guardian, it is so unnecessary and i would feel useless with only sunfire, moonfire and wrath.
Sure its a fine choice for mythic raid, but you lose out on a lot of potential going guardian in keys.
Even with a group taking a lot of damage i can do around 13k overall dps in most dungeons and always over 10k any given week. Dpsing is just so important as a healer, might as well not gimp yourself.
I don’t agree that balance affinity has no single use. For example, in BoD it was useful to heal tanks on the King Rastakhan fight where you would get a longer range for your spells.
Guardian is nice if you need that extra defensive healing. I use it on Lady Ashvane pool soaking.
Feral is in almost every situation the best talent where you don’t need to heal and can do damage. This will speed up the run for your group and is especially wanted in mythic plus.
I use keybinds to shift out of my forms, but also set up my bars like you do so I can just press a (mouseover) healing spell and immediately heal someone out of a shape.
Good pointing out the range aspect of Balance affinity, i totally forgot about that.
Though it’s only really for niche uses where ranged is greatly appreciated.
Yeah that’s also something that range part rly isn’t that bad. I am still levelling though, so atm I choose balance. I tried guardian, but there’s only a few skills to use, with a CD. I understand in raids you do it for the dmg reduction, I do feel personally also there the range isn’t that bad to have.
I will though do mostly mythic+, for some reason I don’t enjoy raid healing, feels like a competition with other healers, whilst I believe that should be a team work, not who has the most output. I also prefer to turn off Detail! anyways.
I do get it that feral gives most dmg output, as a healer I find it weird that the game now focusses on dmg output of a healer though. Plus, like this week, it’s grevieous and sanguine, I’d prefer to stay away from the melee area, since that’s where you get the most dmg done to a group.
Whilst level I guess just use what you prefer, will see what I like more in M+. So I level as balance for now, but that’s also probably an ilvl issue. As feral I really feel I get too much dmg intake, so for now as balance, I can take on bigger groups, with feral usually it’s better to stick to 2 mobs Hope to get 120 soon, can’t wait to start doing mythic dungeons (and ofc rep grinding for essences ).
If you’re playing with other healers and feel you are competing, you are playing with the wrong kind of people. I have been in those guilds too and nothing more difficult than comparing healing output on fights. Actually there’s still one guy in my guild who only thinks about being #1 on healing meters. When his class gets nerfed he will be the first to complain while the others will just keep on doing their job.
Healers doing damage have always been a thing. Now we just have a more available toolkit and a lot of information is available how to use this. I feel like right now you are trying to justify why you are not dealing damage. I think it’s just a matter of trial and error. When I first started doing damage as resto with feral affinity, I was hesitant too. I was very scared my group would die. But, it turned out it was not that hard. You can also try to first use one ability on packs, and slowly work towards your other feral abilities. Nobody expects you do to 10k dps on packs right away (which, by the way, is definitely possible!)
And even if you decide to not use your damage afinity, then that’s fine too. Just don’t be suprised if people notice it on higher keys and ask you to switch, or maybe they just get annoyed. It’s like a DPS not using their kicks or a certain cooldown.
Replying from my main, too lazy to switch I agree with what you say, these silly meters only show certain things, even for DPS, they don’t show what a DPS does (mechanics) if he stops doing DPS, or e.g. having bubble on Lady A. , or like in WM you get rooted all the time on 2nd boss, or you take care of putting the adds on fire on its last boss, whichever it is.
I’m not really in a guild that does focus on it, but sometimes, since we have a healer who’s well geared, and does most HPs, some people tend to thank this person for heals, whilst I think that it’s a team effort, like the rest don’t matter. Not that it’s meant like that, but sometimes it bothered me, one reason I’m also not healing in raids.
I don’t mind doing dmg, but I should mainly focus on heals. Main healer is a shaman, not this one, sadly e.g. chain lightning only had 3 targets, that sucks a lot. I would most probably do up to 15s anyways, unless I don’t see them as a challenge any more. I do stil feel a healer’s main job is keeping people alive. Of course if I’m not doing anything/much, I should put effort into DPSĂng, I also do that as resto shaman.
Hope to get 120 soon, can’t wait to start doing mythic dungeons (and ofc rep grinding for essences 
).