Resto Shaman

[TeaLeaf]

I had a chat with Dreaman about resto shaman and stats yesterday, it rumbled around gear and stats, the differences and where they came from as he was worried he was doign something wrong.  We used our own shamans for comparison during the discussion and I thought it might be helpful to post some of those thoughts here.  

Spellpower
Unbuffed we have a difference of about 499 healing spellpower.  

Enchants
12 shoulder (low end enchant, need Sons rep)
67 wrists (leatherworker)
19 belt (extra socket)
+10 All stats chest (increases talented +healing and spell crit)
Gem slots add a lot, Dreaman has no socketable gear (apart from the belt which could have a socket added).  That's 10 less gems than in my current gear so another 95-190 spellpower lost depending on how you gem those sockets.
(total 193-283 spellpower healing missing ignoring enchant)
So enchants have narrowed what looked like a large gap of 499 spellpower down to 306-216 which seems much closer and not as depressing.

Trinkets
You currently use an MP5 trinket whereas you could use the [item]The Egg of Mortal Essence[/item] which gives you another 98 spellpower plus a huge haste proc.

Haste
Difference of 207 haste.
15 haste comes from enchants (low enchant, could be higher).  The rest comes from gems (48-ish) and gear.  Haste goes up with gear, so there is little you can do to influence this stats and it is not worth gemming heavily for until your spellpower is up to the right level.  The above trinket also procs regularly to buff haste.

Professions
Alchemy/Leatherworking (both of which give a PVE buff) versus Herbalism/Mining (which give no PVE buff).  I gain 67 spellpower from leatherworking and the 59 spellpower/50 haste trinket from alchemy (with 40% mana pot boost).

Crit
A difference of about 10%.  Most of this comes from talents.
Dreaman's talent build
Maytag's talent build
There is no perfect talent build, but the differenc between the two explains some of the crit difference. So, here's the differences and points saved:

Saved
2 points - Improved Reincarnation is not needed in PVE raiding (but damn useful whilst levelling)
3 points - Healing Grace - in game salvation and current threat levels from tanks means that this talent is not needed at all
3 points - Healing Way - it's a nice talent but it is not worth a lot as we rarely spam Healing Wave on the same target, even in 5 mans as the sole healer.
1 point - Nature's Guardian - you'll get more healing back by using the Healing Wave glyph which heals you for 20% of what you healed someone else, this keeps your health up and means you are unlikely to get  down to below 30% HP - and if you do then an extra 10% is probably not going to save you anyway!
Total points saved: 9

Spend the saved points in:
3 points - Improved Shields - maximise your mana regen (and glyph for it too!) and the healing done by your Earth Shields.
5 points - Thundering Strikes - gives an extra 5% spell crit which halves the current 10% gap between us
1 point - Elemental Weapons - small spellpower increase to both Earthliving & Flametongue weapon.

So what looked like some big differences in stats are largely explainable and quite a lot of the gap can be closed by making a few changes.  Obviously gearing up through Naxx10 will help tremendously too, but the message is that you should not be disappointed by the gap as it is something you can reduce and further Naxx runs will close it even further.

Hope this helps.

TL.

[Bastet]

It is important to note that our healers found that spellpower is not that big an issue in early naxx, but instead regen is. Dont go all out on spellpower and forget about your mana pool/regen. Some fights like 4hm and gothic take a while, and the importance of regen on these fights is not to be underestimated.

[Azunai]

It is important to note that our healers found that spellpower is not that big an issue in early naxx, but instead regen is. Dont go all out on spellpower and forget about your mana pool/regen. Some fights like 4hm and gothic take a while, and the importance of regen on these fights is not to be underestimated.

Then on the other early naxx like PW I can imagine you'd need spellpower again cause of the big spike hits =) Depends on the fights I suppose. Maybe get 2 sets?

[TeaLeaf]

I aimed to get spellpower over 2k, crit over 20% and haste over 10% and have then started to build on those base stats.  I am now taking more haste/mp5 gear than anything else and still socketing spellpower/haste when I can - only exception is taking the int meta gem which TC says is better than the alternatives.   Regen I only found any sort of issue when either I mis-timed mana-tides, forgot to use consumables or a pot, or the dps sucked and the fight took too long, either way mana has really not been an issue.

TL.

[Arcticfire]

Thx alot TL, ill take a look at all of those things asap...

probably starting with the talent build;)

Arctic/Dreaman

[Bellanie]

Right then lesson 1 how to bring  apost back to life after almost a year:roflmao:

right sorry for the intro.

I have changed bells offspec to resto and would like some tips on shammy healing, with my own weapon buff i have 2.6ksp 33% crit and 349 haste(13%)

now i have only ever done healing while ele specced,

i know bells spec is fine as i copied TL's( thanks btw, but I thought it would be a spec that works:wink:  )

i will be using the guide that TL has posted about grid and stuff:). I have looked on the net, but thought i would ask here as i know i can always trust the advice and opinions that you lot give:)

also on a side note if you look at bells gear i know some of it it ele gear, but the stats are good so i dont really want to change my gear if i dont need to
regards
Dave

[Fatdog]

i think maybe a little more haste when u can get some, think FDE is running with over 450

[sheepy]

rip tide then chainheal thru it!

[TeaLeaf]

I think the biggest tip for healing is to try not to fall into the trap of doing reactive healing.  If you are reacting then you are not finding the rhythm of the fight.  Watch the incoming damage and get used to the swing speed of the boss and time heals to land accordingly.  Pre-heal the AOEs with riptides then CH etc.  If you have multiple riptides up you can get boosted healing on the CH more often.  Try and keep ahead of the fight and be predictive in what you heal and when.  It even becomes apparent who is the best target for riptides due to either position or more usually their ability to consistently take damage when others are not.

A good UI helps you spot all the above and find that elusive rhythm, but I see you're already on to that!

As for choice of spells:

HW - I tend not to use a lot as I usually never have the time available to wait for such a slow big heal to hit.  In raids anything you target with a HW will always have been healed up by someone elese's faster cast, so don't bother.  HW is really only useful with Nature's Swiftness as an emergency heal unless you have nothing else to do than increase your OH or are just plain bored.

Earth Shield - keep it up on your MT at all times.  It heals for pretty decent amounts (LHW levels almost).

LHW - much more commonly used as a quick fast heal which when combined with Earth Shield and Glyphed is usually more than enough to keep anyone alive.  Great for heroic party healing and spot healing in raids.

CH - as long as the position of the groups is right then this is your biggest spell.  Riptide the tank then LHW him and when you need AOE healing make sure you have a ranged with a running Riptide and a Tank with Riptide, then CH via them both to heal up your group.  Get bossy with ranged in 5 mans and tell them to group up within 10 yards of you so that the CH jumps (range 12.5 yards).

Healing Stream! - this heals for chunks.  With a decently geared group running a heroic Violet Hold I normally do not even have to heal until the final boss.  The HP5 totem does it for me.  Great for healing up squishies in those AOE fights.

Major Glyphs:
You already have these, but
CH glyph: adds one more healing jump so is incredibly valuable
ES glyph - increases the amount healed by the ES by 20%
LHW glyph - increases the LHW by 20% if the target is ES'd.

Gems:
It used to be that gemming for Int was the way to go - it gave more crit and a bigger base mana pool which also then increased the amount you got back via replenishment (which is based on a % of your base mana pool).  However, you get to a stage when you find you never run out of mana anyway (not if you are using manatide and a pot at the right times and keeping water shield up), so why boost your unused mana pool even further?  The only argument to do that might be to keep crit levels up.  However TOC gear gives much more crit than Ulduar did and a lot of MP5, so given that I have crit & MP5 sorted out by the gear and I do not have mana issues, then imo it is best to gem for SP and haste, so I tend to gem like this:

Red - pure SP
Yellow - pure haste or SP & haste
Blue - haste & MP5

Stats Goals:
A shaman's 2 major friends at the moment are spell power and haste.  Crit will come mostly from gear and the T9 4 set bonus (+5% crit on chain heal).  At the TOC level I would aim for a base of

2.5k spell power (I run 2570 and you have the same SP as me)
30% crit (I do not currently wear T9 but have 30.3%, you have 32.2% which is great)
500+ haste (I run 623 unbuffed in my base gear and can exceed 700 if I switch some items.  623 is a 24.7% haste buff which massively helps your throughput in raids.  You currently run 349 haste which is lower than ideal for a resto - but if you switch your gems as above you would immediately add 80 haste to bring yours to 429 and this would be more beneficial to you in both resto & elemental specs)

MP5
I currently run 404 ooc and 320 ic MP5 (the bulk is clearly from MP5 on gear).  I find this more than enough for any fight in game when combined with my base mana pool of about 22k.

Balance:
Hitting all these stats is a balance.  For example your mana might be fine, but if you add 300 haste then you might find that whilst your throughput goes through the roof you are now healing so quickly that you go oom in fights where you were previously ok.  So it is about balancing these stats as your gear improves.  Bit of SP, bit of haste, bit of MP5, keep it all in balance.

Hope this helps.

[Bellanie]

aye that is a big help thanks TL:) need to go away now and look at sorting those stats out so they are balanced more

[Arcticfire]

Bumping this thread to see if anyone of you decided to spec to Telleric Currents.

It seems something worth trying for me to be honest!

[TeaLeaf]

Good god no.  Total waste of talent points imo.  When do you have a couple of GCDs free to cast a LB?  And the mana return after the cost of the LB is not that great.   Remember you also do not have Elemental Precision so there's a good chunk of 17% chance that you spend mana on a LB that misses and therefore returns no mana at all.

The real choice is if you are constantly going oom and unable to cast then would you benefit from having a mana regen from LB - the answer to which is yes, but so far we have not reached that situation with RGT - we've been close, but the value of other talent points seem to far outweigh the minor benefit of TC as a talent choice and the mana regen talents within the group always pull us through.  The Baleroc fight was close to oom, but we got the kill and a long slow untalented LB cast might have regen'd some mana but we'd probably also have lost the tank in the gap whilst you cast the LB!

Look at what you might have to give up to get a point in TC:
-loss of critical strike
-totem range reduced
-lack of instant cast ghost wolf

Are any of those worth it?  Imo no.