WotLK Shaman Concerns, Questions and Thoughts

[Romalus]

 With the new expansion on the horizon (sort of), I've done a fair amount of research and lurking and I've come up with some questions I'd like to ask and some concerns and thoughts I'd like to get out there. This will mostly revolve around the healing aspect of the class as that's what I've always enjoyed the most. If any of the questions in here are actually thought provoking enough to take to the shaman forums on the main Warcraft website, feel free to copy or change them as you see fit.

Link to my armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...a+52&n=Romalus

 Now, on to the main topic, I'll do my best to keep this organized. Using the format I find easiest when quoting and responding.

Concerns:

- The lack of Chain Heal ranks has me worried. In end game TBC raiding 90% of the spells cast by a resto shaman should be Chain Heal, one rank or another. If Blizzard follows through with their wishes of reducing the effectiveness of CoH and CH, we'll be cornered into being Paladin-esque healers.

-Itemization in WotLK doesn't concern so much as confuse me. With Spell Power replacing +healing and +damage, I'm worried that competition in a raid setting will be as it was for Tier Tokens, not so much for me as for the spell casters, boomkin, etc.

- Totems are being consolidated in the expansion. I'd absolutely love it if someone could shed some light on the new totems. Mana and Healing water totems combined?


Questions:

-How effective with Spirit Link be? Is it going to be a fairly PvP oriented talent or will it have some substantial use in PvE?

-With Tidal Waves and Ancestral Awakening, will crit be a major stat for us to stack? If it's not, how effective can these two talents be?

 I'm also wondering if we'll be forced to become single target healers, I hate to go from raid healer to MT healer.


Thoughts:

Will end game raids have as much of a need for resto shaman in LK as they did in BC? My hopes are that raids wont be forced to consolidate and bring at most 2 shaman. Will our resto bottom tier talents be up to par?

[Intwine]

personally i think every 25man raid will have min 3 shamans.
2 resto and a enhancment.
The more progressive guilds, semi hardcore's and the we dont give a shit lets have a blast guilds wil also bring a elemental.

I myself am not focusing on the healing tree atm because i will be lvling as an enhancement shaman, come lvl80 ill start looking around to resto spec.

[findhor]

I definitely think talents as they are now hint at a change on our way to heal.

Seems obvious that Blizz intends crit to become our new stat, since there are now 5 talents revolving around crit heals (and more specifically LHW / HW)
- Ancestral Healing, as always, boosts armor on a crit heal
- Tidal Mastery still increases crit from our heals / lightning spells
- Improved Water Shield, uses a water shield orb (=gives mana back) on a crit HW / LHW
- Blessing of the Eternals boosts crits even further
- Ancestral Awakening heals lowest health raid member on a crit

I actually think of it as a way to diversify our way of healing, and I for one can't blame it. I can't say I'm not a bit disappointed to see that Chain Heal didn't get much love with the new talents (apart from one that further incites you to use LHW/HW when using Chain Heal by reducing their cast time...), but I think I can live with having to use more than 2 ranks of one spell when raiding