Restoration Guide to MoP

[Table]

Are you guys using Glyph of Water Shield ? Water Shield procs ONLY for direct damage on me, or AoE dmg on raid proc it too ? Because most of DS fights we have some kind of AoE on raid (Stomps Morchok, Black Phase General, Bubles Yosaj, Eletric Storm Hagara...and all the others)...so, wondering if the +50% reactive regen from the Glyph are a good deal !

Mostly it is only when you get hit by single-target abilities. It is a very nice mana gain on Yor'sahj and Spine due to all the adds, and also a decent sized mana gain on Morchok and mana neutral on Warmaster. Ultraxion, Hagara, Zon'ozz, and Madness you would be better off not glyphing it.

The glyph of RT is nice, but by no means necessary. Spamming that crap is gonna oom you, and you're still gonna be outhealed by the resto druid. Best to stick with triage healing and HR to get us to the top of the meters.

Glyph of Riptide is most useful in spread fights in 10 mans, where HR will not do much and it will be hard to get full use of CH without the glyph. If you use RT as a triage HoT instead of spamming it on everyone when no damage is going out, it will not OOM you any faster than spamming GHW on people who take damage.

In a stacked fight, you are right by saying stick to HR. Glyph of Riptide is an optional way to change your healing style, but if you are looking to push progression or top the healing charts, it will be necessary on certain fights. This is from a 10 man perspective, on 25 man it is doubtful there will be any fight where Glyph of Riptide is necessary to be competitive.

[Deleted]

Mostly it is only when you get hit by single-target abilities. It is a very nice mana gain on Yor'sahj and Spine due to all the adds, and also a decent sized mana gain on Morchok and mana neutral on Warmaster. Ultraxion, Hagara, Zon'ozz, and Madness you would be better off not glyphing it.

This is how the glyph will be in Mists too. There will be fights its a mana increase, fights its not. Just like talents you will be swapping it around based on what the next fight is.

[takolin]

Glyph of Riptide is most useful in spread fights in 10 mans, where HR will not do much and it will be hard to get full use of CH without the glyph. If you use RT as a triage HoT instead of spamming it on everyone when no damage is going out, it will not OOM you any faster than spamming GHW on people who take damage.

In a stacked fight, you are right by saying stick to HR. Glyph of Riptide is an optional way to change your healing style, but if you are looking to push progression or top the healing charts, it will be necessary on certain fights. This is from a 10 man perspective, on 25 man it is doubtful there will be any fight where Glyph of Riptide is necessary to be competitive.

I don't believe RT is for spread out fights. It's for fight where you need to sacrifice efficiency for mobility. If you're just spread out in a 10 man, you might as well glyph CH, use RT on CD and stick with hasted GHWs/HWs to fill the gaps.

[Table]

I don't believe RT is for spread out fights. It's for fight where you need to sacrifice efficiency for mobility. If you're just spread out in a 10 man, you might as well glyph CH, use RT on CD and stick with hasted GHWs/HWs to fill the gaps.

Glyph of Riptide is useful for both spread healing and mobility. If constant raid wide damage is going out, it will be hard to keep them up if you are just spot healing with GHW as opposed to pre-blanketing everyone with RT. In terms of efficiency, RT glyphed is more efficient than GHW with tidal waves, with GHW doing slightly more healing.

I would say it is a trade off of decreasing the healing done by a powerful and efficient single-target heal in order to increase our ability to spread heal and heal on the move. It also makes it very easy to have higher tidal waves uptime (with won't be needed with T14 set bonus) and easily switch targets when CHing.

[Daws001]

I'm curious about Unleashed Fury...our target gets a separate 50% buff from the original 30% buff that's on the caster...since Unleashed Fury doesn't buff Healing Rain, could we get two buffed heals off with that talent? In other words, use Unleashed Fury, cast Healing Rain (30% buffed), then cast GHW on the target (50% buffed)?

[mjolnrik]

I'm curious about Unleashed Fury...our target gets a separate 50% buff from the original 30% buff that's on the caster...since Unleashed Fury doesn't buff Healing Rain, could we get two buffed heals off with that talent? In other words, use Unleashed Fury, cast Healing Rain (30% buffed), then cast GHW on the target (50% buffed)?

I think so. Im not sure but i think the 50% buff would most likely be a buff on the target u heal thus only being removed after you cast a heal on them. But tbh unless your tank healing, i dont think the talent is a great choice since it doesnt buff healing rain

[Keiyra]

I think so. Im not sure but i think the 50% buff would most likely be a buff on the target u heal thus only being removed after you cast a heal on them. But tbh unless your tank healing, i dont think the talent is a great choice since it doesnt buff healing rain

True, but if you could use a chain heal on the target with the 50% buff, would all bounces of chain be bigger?..

If so that could be decent for aoe healing UE+UF talent, HR (+30%), CH on UE/UF target(+50%).

[mjolnrik]

True, but if you could use a chain heal on the target with the 50% buff, would all bounces of chain be bigger?..

If so that could be decent for aoe healing UE+UF talent, HR (+30%), CH on UE/UF target(+50%).

well it says single target heal in the tooltip so i doubt chain heal would work, and if it does I would think it wud work much like how the old earthshield talent worked as it only increased the healing on the target with earthshield

[Keiyra]

Hmm, darn that's right. oh well. Meh, just means if i take that talent I'll just always unleash on the tank or someone i plan to single target heal after the HR.

[Daws001]

Yeah, if that is how UF works, then it's a really flexibile talent. We can HR + HS/GHW combo -or- fire off two buffed heals on two different targets -or- fire one massively boosted heal on one target. Sounds pretty yummy.

Now watch it not work that way. /wrists

[Deleted]

Yeah, if that is how UF works, then it's a really flexibile talent. We can HR + HS/GHW combo -or- fire off two buffed heals on two different targets -or- fire one massively boosted heal on one target. Sounds pretty yummy.

Now watch it not work that way. /wrists

That is exactly how it works. You use Unleash Life on someone, you get the normal Unleash Life buff, they get the Unleash Fury buff. If you use a heal on them if consumes your buff then consumes theirs. If you heal someone else first (ie Healing Rain) it will consume your buff but not theirs. Even if you say place the HR on top of them, the HR heal won't get buffed on them by the Unleash Fury buff because that is only affected by single target heals. So you can UF:L the tank, drop a HR, then get a big heal off on the tank too.

Its the best option for healers who don't want to change their rotation, because you will be using Unleash Life anyway to buff HR, so its a flat HPS increase just because it will allow you to get bigger heals off on tanks (or people taking extra damage because of fight mechanics). Primal Elementalist is aimed at fights which have high healing phases but not all the fight, EB is aimed at fights that require you to deal DPS to meet enrage timers or for fights that have at semi-regular intervals jumps in raid damage (for example Warlord Zon'ozz pre-nerf and Yor'sahj pre-nerf, the damage phases are too often for PE to help with them all, are AoE so UF isn't as useful and have 'down phases' which you can use to pre-cast EB).

[Aviators]

Conductivity works out really nice for H-Ultra, UL+HR and glyph for TC and spam lightning bolts.

[lvlark]

Nice guide, I'm still having to delve into the math section. I might redo a lot of the math just because I'll remember it better that way. I've got two suggestions/comments so far:

Tier 3 – Totem Utility Tier

Call of the Elements
-Not nearly as good since nerf, now it is really only good for resetting the CD on HST. Overall, a fairly weak talent.

Totemic Restoration
-This talent is situational as your totems will not be destroyed much. Can be used with SLT in order to get the shared health tick, but reset the CD to half of normal. This will be very useful on fights like Spine where SLT is very good for the health distribution, but after the first tick does not do as much.

Totemic Projection
-A good utility talent, gives us the chance to move all our totems (MTT, HST) and can also be used with SLT in order to use it on a tank without having to move to him. This is the best choice in most situations.


Tier 6 – Output Tier

Elemental Blast
-This is an interesting talent that is not very viable for Resto raiding. The loss of global cooldowns is not worth the small amount of throughput gains, which is less than the other talents in the tier. This could be useful in 5 mans to add extra dps when you are not healing.

In my opinion, Totemic Restoration is a bit more useful than that. SLT isn't just the health distribution, it's also 10% reduced damage, which on for example warmaster blackhorn is useful to have up to twice as often. But more importantly, it allows you to use both your tide totems without worrying about healing stream cooldown, because healing stream, when destroyed with this talent, will always go to 15s cooldown. Both your tide totems last longer than that anyway. It'll still be, over the course of the fight, better to not destroy your healing stream (more mana-effective as well), but if the situation demands a tide, this'll lessen the drawback of it. Also, you can destroy Healing Tide when everybody is topped off to get some cooldown reduction on it. Or even (Naaru forbid) if you accidentally stacked HTT with another healing cooldown. The use of Totemic Projection will prove more bothersome imo, so if you can't seem to handle that very well, I'd say Totemic Restoration is a strong contender.

As I said, I haven't delved into the math and the exact gains for this tier, but: As to Elemental Blast, bearing in mind that it costs no mana, I think it can be useful if you have to supercharge some heals in a mana-intensive fight. The loss of a GCD could be made up by the fact that a less mana-consuming rotation is now powerful enough. Or even if you do still use costly spells but weave this one in, it'll be one GCD where you don't spend mana. Have to do some math to get a grip of how small the throughput gain actually is for different scenario's. Too bad the stat chosen is random. (you should probably add that?)

[Table]

In my opinion, Totemic Restoration is a bit more useful than that. SLT isn't just the health distribution, it's also 10% reduced damage, which on for example warmaster blackhorn is useful to have up to twice as often. But more importantly, it allows you to use both your tide totems without worrying about healing stream cooldown, because healing stream, when destroyed with this talent, will always go to 15s cooldown. Both your tide totems last longer than that anyway. It'll still be, over the course of the fight, better to not destroy your healing stream (more mana-effective as well), but if the situation demands a tide, this'll lessen the drawback of it. Also, you can destroy Healing Tide when everybody is topped off to get some cooldown reduction on it. Or even (Naaru forbid) if you accidentally stacked HTT with another healing cooldown. The use of Totemic Projection will prove more bothersome imo, so if you can't seem to handle that very well, I'd say Totemic Restoration is a strong contender.

Totemic Restoration doesn't work like that. It reduces the CD of the destroyed totem by the percentage of time lost UP TO 50%. This means that 50% is the max, so if you summon a totem and instantly destroy it you will have half the CD. If you cast HST and then 5 seconds later cast MTT, HST's CD is reduced to about 20 seconds. If you wait 10 seconds, the CD will be 25 seconds. It is a very viable talent if you find your totems being destroyed, but if you do not then it is not very useful. It is definitely the best talent to pair with Glyph of Totemic Recall.

As I said, I haven't delved into the math and the exact gains for this tier, but: As to Elemental Blast, bearing in mind that it costs no mana, I think it can be useful if you have to supercharge some heals in a mana-intensive fight. The loss of a GCD could be made up by the fact that a less mana-consuming rotation is now powerful enough. Or even if you do still use costly spells but weave this one in, it'll be one GCD where you don't spend mana. Have to do some math to get a grip of how small the throughput gain actually is for different scenario's. Too bad the stat chosen is random. (you should probably add that?)

Elemental Blast will have its place in 5 mans and entry level raid content, but in the majority of healing intense fights, you will not be able to spare the time to cast it every 12 seconds to get the most use out of it. Primal Elementalist offers much more healing at a low mana cost or free if you use Glyph of Totemic Recall. It also only costs 1 GCD per ele and brings you other utility, such as the 20% damage reduction for 1 min by the Earth Ele. Primal Elementalist is much more convenient in the way that you can just pop an ele before an phase of intense healing and reap the benefits. If you want EB to compete with PE, you will need to cast it on CD which means during phases of intense healing you will be sacrificing time that could have been spent healing to use EB, which will lead to lower throughput gains than PE.

In terms of mana, EB is interesting in the fact that it provides crit which can lead to regen through resurgance. If all you do for a 5 mins fight is cast EB then RT while it is on CD, you will gain about 14000 mana (with a 1/3 chance to get crit on average). With a rotation of RT+2xHW and EB on CD, it will average to about 18000 mana on a 5 min fight. I would not consider this small amount of mana return on a 5 min fight worth the loss of GCDs or a 20% Damage Reduction CD.

The damage of EB is nice and will most likely be useful in 5 mans and early raiding, but it is only about 4000 dps if used on CD.

[lvlark]

Totemic Restoration doesn't work like that. It reduces the CD of the destroyed totem by the percentage of time lost UP TO 50%. This means that 50% is the max, so if you summon a totem and instantly destroy it you will have half the CD. If you cast HST and then 5 seconds later cast MTT, HST's CD is reduced to about 19.5 seconds. If you wait 10 seconds, the CD will be 22.5 seconds. It is a very viable talent if you find your totems being destroyed, but if you do not then it is not very useful. It is definitely the best talent to pair with Glyph of Totemic Recall.

Actually, it does. Why do you think it's 19.5 or 22.5 seconds?
Cast MTT x seconds after you cast HST. Your remaining cooldown on HST is now 30-x before the talent. Your remaining time of HST is 15-x. So the fraction of time left is (15-x)/15. Multiply that fraction with the total cooldown of HST to get the amount of cooldown reduced: 30*((15-x)/15)=30-2x. We subtract that from our original 30-x remaining cooldown. So your remaining cooldown is now 30-x -(30-2x)=30-x-30+2x=x. So your cooldown is now x seconds, less than 15 seconds. Now the second part of the talent kicks in and puts your cooldown back up to 15s, but that's shorter than your MTT lasts so it'll be off cooldown when your Tide finishes.

Consider this: If you cast HST and destroy it 5 seconds later, you've got 10 seconds left of HST, so your cooldown will be reduced by 10/15 of 30 seconds, which is 20 seconds, making the cooldown 10 seconds. However, since you've already had 5 seconds of those 10 seconds, the cooldown should be 10-5=5 seconds. Still, that's less than 15s so it'll be 15s again.

In fact, I just logged on to the game to try it. And no matter at what time of the duration of HST you destroy it, its cooldown jumps down to 15 seconds.

I have to admit one mistake I made, I said both tide totems and healing tide totem obviously only lasts 10 seconds instead of 15. You'll have to wait for 5 seconds before you can put HST back up. But still, that's a cd reduction. If you pop HTT 5 seconds after HST it'll save you 10 seconds of cooldown. If you pop HTT 10 seconds after HST it'll save you 5 seconds of cooldown. Basically, if you pop HTT x seconds after HST it saves you 15-x seconds of cooldown.

[Table]

Actually, it does. Why do you think it's 19.5 or 22.5 seconds?
Cast MTT x seconds after you cast HST. Your remaining cooldown on HST is now 30-x before the talent. Your remaining time of HST is 15-x. So the fraction of time left is (15-x)/15. Multiply that fraction with the total cooldown of HST to get the amount of cooldown reduced: 30*((15-x)/15)=30-2x. We subtract that from our original 30-x remaining cooldown. So your remaining cooldown is now 30-x -(30-2x)=30-x-30+2x=x. So your cooldown is now x seconds, less than 15 seconds. Now the second part of the talent kicks in and puts your cooldown back up to 15s, but that's shorter than your MTT lasts so it'll be off cooldown when your Tide finishes.

Consider this: If you cast HST and destroy it 5 seconds later, you've got 10 seconds left of HST, so your cooldown will be reduced by 10/15 of 30 seconds, which is 20 seconds, making the cooldown 10 seconds. However, since you've already had 5 seconds of those 10 seconds, the cooldown should be 10-5=5 seconds. Still, that's less than 15s so it'll be 15s again.

In fact, I just logged on to the game to try it. And no matter at what time of the duration of HST you destroy it, its cooldown jumps down to 15 seconds.

I have to admit one mistake I made, I said both tide totems and healing tide totem obviously only lasts 10 seconds instead of 15. You'll have to wait for 5 seconds before you can put HST back up. But still, that's a cd reduction. If you pop HTT 5 seconds after HST it'll save you 10 seconds of cooldown. If you pop HTT 10 seconds after HST it'll save you 5 seconds of cooldown. Basically, if you pop HTT x seconds after HST it saves you 15-x seconds of cooldown.

After checking, you are right. I messed up my numbers because I did not factor in the time active towards the CD. The CD should be 20 seconds (or 19.5) if the totem is destroyed after 5 seconds, but minus the 5 seconds that passed when the totem was active, making it a 15 second CD. On longer CD totems, the time that the totem is active does not take a sizable chunk out of the CD. Your formulas work for HST, but for something like HTT they would not work.

10 second duration, 180 second CD

180((10-x)/10)= 180-18x
180 - x - (180-18x) = 17x new CD
If x = 5 then 17x = 85 second CD, less than half so it is bumped up to 90 second CD
But in practice, the CD is 135 seconds. This is because the way it functions is %time remaining *50%max CD = CD reduction
so 5/10 = .5 *(.5*180) = 45 second reductions
New CD = 180 - 45 - 5 (seconds active) = 130 seconds

Using the same formula with HST if it lasts 5 seconds
10/15 * .5*30
2/3 * 15 = 10 second reduction
30 - 10 - 5 (second active) = 15
The same if it lasts 10 seconds
5/15 *.5*30
1/3*15 = 5 seconds
30 - 5 - 10 (seconds active) = 15

My numbers before were off because I did not take the seconds active out of the CD and that is my fault.

[lvlark]

This is because the way it functions is %time remaining *50%max CD = CD reduction

Hmm I never knew this factor of 50%.. I guess that that's because Blizzard isn't terribly detailed in alot of its ingame tooltip wording, because it says "its duration is reduced in proportion to the lost duration". Turns out that proportion includes a factor of .5, which means that my calculations were off as well, but because of the 'up to 50%' part of the talent the result is the same.

[Table]

Hmm I never knew this factor of 50%.. I guess that that's because Blizzard isn't terribly detailed in alot of its ingame tooltip wording, because it says "its duration is reduced in proportion to the lost duration". Turns out that proportion includes a factor of .5, which means that my calculations were off as well, but because of the 'up to 50%' part of the talent the result is the same.

Yeah, a lot of people (including myself) thought it worked a different way when it came out, being that if the totem was destroyed at any point in the first 50% of its duration the CD got set to 50%. I wish it did work that way, it would make the talent so that it function much like Glyph of Fire Elemental but for all totems. I am guessing it is not that way because it would overshadow the other talents in the tier because of the viability of getting to basically pick the duration of totems without sacrificing throughput/utility.

[Zues]

I honestly don't think the glyph of RT will make us the choice candidates for fights where we have to cast on the go. Resto druids/priests will be able to heal on the go with much more effective spells than shamans, and even do more than just one at a time.

[lvlark]

I am guessing it is not that way because it would overshadow the other talents in the tier because of the viability of getting to basically pick the duration of totems without sacrificing throughput/utility.

Yeah come to think of it that would be rather overpowered. Which in my latest experience resto shamans already are..

I honestly don't think the glyph of RT will make us the choice candidates for fights where we have to cast on the go. Resto druids/priests will be able to heal on the go with much more effective spells than shamans, and even do more than just one at a time.

It won't make us the CHOICE candidates, but it'll make us better able to do so. Especially in 10 mans, where you don't have as many healers, and not as big a roster to fall back on. For example the Elegon encounter looks like you'll want to be able to cast while on the move, when you're supposed to supply 50%/33% of the healing done but can't do shit in movement phases that's both bad for your raid, and extremely boring even if the other healer could keep the raid up by him/herself.
And if you're in a 25man and your healing CAN be missed during the movement phase, it's still boring as hell.

That said, I like Riptide without the glyph. I like the toolset which makes resto shamans unique (the way healers were all quite different from each other) and Riptide is a part of it. I'll probably try to get away with not glyphing it as long as I can.