5.4 Resto vs Resto!

[Deleted]

First a tiny bit of information about me,


I currently play an Elemental shaman, however our Disc Priest is leaving very soon and I'll be taking over his role of healing for 3 heal fights and providing ranged dps for 2 heal fights. We're a fairly casual/fun 10 man team and have 8 bosses down on heroic at the moment (hoping to make it 9 this week though). I also have a druid that has around 525 ilvl for feral which I am trying to gear up for Resto. The Druid, while behind in gear is currently on 5 titan runestones vs 1 on the shaman.

Whichever of these I play would be a healer with a ranged dps offspec.

My question is, ignoring fun etc, which option would most likely be stronger assuming equal gear etc,

Resto Druid with a Boomkin offspec

or

Resto Shaman with an Elemental offspec?

I know most of the answers will be opinion but please throw in any reasons you can think of, thanks.

Edit: we run with
DK and Warrior tanks
Mage, Lock, Ret, Rogue, Ele dps
Monk, Paladin and Disc healers

I'd be taking the Disc's place and we'd be bringing in a Hunter most likely to fill the Ele spot.

[Barrun]

What is your raid comp?

[shammypie]

I'd go shaman just for the raid cooldowns. monk and druid tend to compete for heals the same way disc and hpally do. Shamans tend to heal more when neccessary and are good for bringing people back from the brink.

[Deleted]

I can't stand Boomkin gameplay, so I'd go shaman for sure.
Resto Shaman shouldn't be as bad next tier, and with HTT being baseline we should have enough tools to handle any mechanism. So you should really play what you prefer/are better at. Also as an ele shaman you can now bring good off-healing with conductivity or AG + HTT without impacting your damage too much, which can be valuable while 2-healing.
Some factor you might consider :
- what are the gearing differences between resto and boomkin spec ? The more items you can use in both specs without having to reforge/regem, the better. For shaman mastery is very poor for resto, making gearing for both spec not easy.
- Be sure your raid has all the buffs/utility needed. Your raid seems quite balanced, but better be sure you won't miss something important before making your choice : dispels, armor debuff, anti-fear, combat rez... Depends on what will be needed next tier of course

[Fieldcrest]

My main is a resto shaman - I also have a resto druid that I play and raid with often.

If your rogue is assassination and your hunter uses a sporebat, then you'll have melee/spell haste covered. 2 other classes in your raid can Brez so that's covered too.

In a 10m setting I'd definitely say druid is the stronger healer choice. In 5.4 they've made strides to improve Resto Shaman's 10m healing options, but druids have also gotten substantial buffs. I've had a lot of experience testing on the PTR, and if I were going to pick between healing a 10m on my shaman or druid I'd definitely pick my druid.

As far as dps goes, I find moonkin and ele play-style to be pretty similar. On the off-healing side though I'd say Elemental has quite a bit of utility over Balance. Elemental gained a baseline Healing Tide Totem on top of AG. Balance lost it's healing increases from Heart of the Wild. From my experience testing in SoO Elemental's cleave potential is pretty strong as well. So if I were going to pick between the two for ranged damage in a 10m in 5.4 I'd pick Elemental.

I'm sure this doesn't help you come any closer to a decision, sorry!

[Sacromental]

With your comp I would suggest Shaman - from a gear perspective at least.

With Zhalia's post in mind - your a 10man and the last thing you want is dead gear drops which will happen when you switch to druid plus you'll be competing with the Monk for gear anyway, and will have spirit-cloth being a dead-drop anyway so that's something to think about. 2 dead-drops in a 10-man ain't that great. If you don''t bring the Hunter you'll have 3 dead-drops.

From talent perspective - they are giving Resto Shaman's a very unique and diverse toolkit - while Resto druids also have some intresting buffs but given the above then prehaps it is not that good a perspective. Plus Mana Tide Totem will be pretty important since your losing Mana Hymn (or what ever you call it, I dont know priests that well).

Balance has a completely different set-up then Resto in terms of gearing which may harmfully inpact your DPS perfromance whilst DPS'n compared to Resto/Ele Shaman. While Crit is generally meh for Ele - mastery is beast - so if your running a spirit/mastery Resto setup then your pretty good. Spirit/Crit Resto will damage you numbers in ele but not as bad as the difference between Balance (crit is boss) vs Resto Druid (spirit/mastery unless something else has changed that).

Getting those off-spec trinkits is the most importanat thing though.

In conclusion; your raid will benefit the most from Resto/Ele then from Druid. - your play performance is prob. the greater factor however.

[jimmyolsen]

The Monk and Pally are going to be able to handle the bulk of the healing regardless of which you choose, but Pallies severely lack massive CDs. As such, I think Shaman is probably the better choice. In 5.4 you'll have Ascendance, Healing Tide, and Spirit Link all baseline. Combine that with the option of using Ancestral Guidance and you'll have more CDs than you know what to do with. Not to mention, as Sacro said, the drops fit nicer if you're a shaman.

As for gearing, as you know Haste and Mastery are kings of elemental, but are typically considered weaker for 10 man Resto. However, haste can have some very nice benefits for healing if you can support the mana costs. With haste, your Ascendance and Ancestral Guidances become even more powerful. I like to run Elemental Mastery as Resto for the option of popping it right before Ascendance or Healing Tide Totem. With ilvels as high as they are going to be, I can't see getting sufficient spirit to support a high haste build as being a problem. Either way, I'd still keep a few non-spirit pieces (typically stuff you've upgraded out of) for when you switch gear for offspec.

The only reason I think Boomkin would be worthwhile is the ability to throw Tranq while in DPS spec.

[Sparkidy]

From my admittedly limited experience and from what I've been told, Balance takes a bit of getting used to in order to do a good job, whereas Elemental is pretty easy. So if you're not good at balance already, there'll probably be a steeper/longer learning curve where you underperform a bit until you get the hang of it.

Since there are more fights you'll be two healing than 3 healing, off spec performance does become pretty important.

[Sacromental]

The Monk and Pally are going to be able to handle the bulk of the healing regardless of which you choose, but Pallies severely lack massive CDs. As such, I think Shaman is probably the better choice. In 5.4 you'll have Ascendance, Healing Tide, and Spirit Link all baseline. Combine that with the option of using Ancestral Guidance and you'll have more CDs than you know what to do with. Not to mention, as Sacro said, the drops fit nicer if you're a shaman.

As for gearing, as you know Haste and Mastery are kings of elemental, but are typically considered weaker for 10 man Resto. However, haste can have some very nice benefits for healing if you can support the mana costs. With haste, your Ascendance and Ancestral Guidances become even more powerful. I like to run Elemental Mastery as Resto for the option of popping it right before Ascendance or Healing Tide Totem. With ilvels as high as they are going to be, I can't see getting sufficient spirit to support a high haste build as being a problem. Either way, I'd still keep a few non-spirit pieces (typically stuff you've upgraded out of) for when you switch gear for offspec.

The only reason I think Boomkin would be worthwhile is the ability to throw Tranq while in DPS spec.

Tranq vs Ancestrel Guidence + Healing Tide? Poss. alot of overhealing but I think that this particular Ele Shaman Combo would be more efficiant then HOTW - Tranq.

[shammypie]

Slightly off topic did they just buff healing rain for resto in 5.4?

[Sparkidy]

Radius got increased by 2yds, as well as the target cap before spreading I think?

[Rucati]

Druid will probably be the stronger healer, whereas Ele will be the stronger DPS. I'd probably go Resto Shaman, since 2 heal fights seem to outnumber 3 heal fights, plus RShamans will be pretty viable next patch, just not as strong as Druids.

[Tiberria]

Slightly off topic did they just buff healing rain for resto in 5.4?

They have had Healing Rain buffed for the last month, but they changed how they buffed it

Before tonight's build - Increased target cap from 6 to 14 in 25 man raids. Made it up to a 133% buff over what it is on live if you have 14+ targets stacked in the HR.

After tonight's build - Target cap down to 6 in all raids. Buffed the healing done by the spell (for Resto only) by 100%. HR is basically doubled for 10 mans. For 25 mans, it's a nerf over the previous build if you have more than 12 targets in the HR, but a buff with less than that.

[shammypie]

They have had Healing Rain buffed for the last month, but they changed how they buffed it

Before tonight's build - Increased target cap from 6 to 14 in 25 man raids. Made it up to a 133% buff over what it is on live if you have 14+ targets stacked in the HR.

After tonight's build - Target cap down to 6 in all raids. Buffed the healing done by the spell (for Resto only) by 100%. HR is basically doubled for 10 mans. For 25 mans, it's a nerf over the previous build if you have more than 12 targets in the HR, but a buff with less than that.

ah cause i logged onto ptr and didn't see healing rain doing anymore healing than normal

[Tiberria]

ah cause i logged onto ptr and didn't see healing rain doing anymore healing than normal

Generally, PTR builds are datamined 1-2 days before they actually get loaded to the PTR. They'll probably load it tomorrow or something for weekend raid testing.