Restoration shaman clean up

[Shikaka]

Being a healer isn't to top the healing meters but to heal who you are assigned to and the most efficent way to do so.

It's about healing who you are assigned to, and topping meters. It is those seconds in-between keeping up your target that really show pro vs noob.

[Deleted]

I think your section in INT needs a little revisiting. Replenishment was nerfed a bit therefore INT isn't weighed as heavily as it was back in the naxx 25 days. I would also like to point out that as far as end-game goes, you shouldn't have any int gems in your gear either. As much as I despise people thinking that all we can do is "brain heal", it has become more viable. Haste is important yes. However, it is all about stat balancing.

Your mana pool will tell you what you need more of. If you find yourself holding back and not cross healing because of lack of mana, you should probably drop haste and pickup crit or mp5. In tier 9 content the itemization of restoration shaman is very crit heavy. To compensate a lot of shaman have been gemming pure haste and losing socket bonuses. I feel this is a good way to balance your stats, HOWEVER, It is by no means the right way. In a perfect condition when you have the perfect gear from ToGC(25) ~ ToGC(10), then maybe you can get away with gemming all +20 haste gems.

If you do decide to stack haste with not-so-perfect ilevel you will suffer.

Your spellpower will be too low, your mp5 will be too low, and your crit will be too low. Important thing to remember, the more haste you have, the quicker you will go out of mana. Therefore you need to stat balance for more regen attributes.

P.S. Don't rant and rave about me dissing haste, healing is an art, there is no one righteous way to do anything in the realm of healing. Be creative!

P.S.S. Things that compensate for lack of haste include:
1. Good in-game ms. Servers with better hardware will make it easier to heal.
2. Quick reflexes will always be better than haste (to a degree).
3. Knowing where you fit in your healing roster within your own guild will aid you in EHPS.
EX. *If your guild has 1 Holy pally, but 3 Restoration Druids, you will probably be better off, off-healing the tanks.*
4. Glyph and spec according to your other healers.
5. Don't be afraid to blow cooldowns and pop potions EVERY attempt. Go bat-shit crazy the first attempt on a new-fight to keep everyone alive, when you realize that the fight will be long and vigorous, cut back on your mana usage next go.

You need to remeber this is not a guide for end game. Also this is not a guide, theres a reason I have not included any healing tips, this is a FAQ for generally new restoration shamans. Also to stop the huge amount of posts on this forum asking for advice which is now here.
I was stacking haste gems as soon as 3.2 came out. This is in normal toc + ulduar. The stats on that gear (generally 266/232+) is still easily enough to stack haste on. I did mention the need of balancing stats before stacking haste.
I don't really want to repeat whats already been said, but might as well. The clear reason why haste is so much better then any other stat is the nature of our spells.
Less healing wave: Assuming its used when tidal waves buff is active it should be critting around 70% of the time. Therefore lowering the usefulness of crit.
Healing wave: As this spell heals so much already, spell power does not really help this spell much. Yes it will heal more, but when its already healing 16k+ why would you want it to heal more. The same applys for crit.
Chain heal: Raid healing is all about the speed you get out the heals. With druids and preists throwing instants everywhere you need to be able to do a decent timed chain heal. Therefore haste is very important.
Riptide: This is the only ability that haste has no effect on. As it makes up very little of our healing anyways, its not hugely important to focus on.

Never gem for crit. You get 14% crit from talents alone and theres a huge amount of it on our gear already.



Now end game, if your healers are good and talented you should really strugle to heal the raid as a shaman before they are fully healed. With druids and preists throwing out very fast heals you need to try and compenstate for our slower cast weakness by getting as much haste as possable (with out nerfing stats).
So assuming all the healers in your raid have around the same reaction time you will be really strugerling to be even close on the meters, without a resonable amount of haste.
That all being said I personally think healing meters are rubbish, use them as a guide to how you could help your own personal healing. Not to compare and "top the meters".

[comablack]

both holy and disc priests bring the 10% damage reduction buff, no just disc

[Deleted]

Generally only disc spec into it.

[comablack]

maybe bad holy priests skip it

[Shikaka]

Now end game, if your healers are good and talented you should really strugle to heal the raid as a shaman before they are fully healed. With druids and preists throwing out very fast heals you need to try and compenstate for our slower cast weakness by getting as much haste as possable (with out nerfing stats).
So assuming all the healers in your raid have around the same reaction time you will be really strugerling to be even close on the meters, without a resonable amount of haste.
That all being said I personally think healing meters are rubbish, use them as a guide to how you could help your own personal healing. Not to compare and "top the meters".

Oh I wholeheartedly agree, I didn't mean to come off as a douche. Healing meters definitely aren't everything.

For example: Heroic Twins. A shaman could just ES Tank + GCD Chain heal on the tank and get ridiculous HPS. However, you might let a soaker die, or a dps die.

To your comment about us not being close on the meters to druids//priests. It is really about group composition, there is a lot of variables. If you are the only restoration shaman in the raid, you can do very well. That is just the way the chain heal dynamics are, it fills in gaps and health differentials.

[comablack]

healing meters = who went afk on trash meter

[Arganaut]

Hi Sexy Shamans, i'm currently re-rolling a shammy who is battling her way through Northrend as Enhance. I'm loving the class but need to make my mind up on a couple of specs (bought dual spec) so figured I'd come to the Shaman forum on MMO for advice.

When it comes to Resto, do any of you bind spells to your mouse buttons, using addons like clique, in which case which spells do you bind? Being a paladin, I bind flash of light, holy light, shock, sacred shield and cleanse. Just wondering how many spells resto has in the toolbox and which are most important and most used so I can figure out my top 5 bindings.

Thanks

[Grohnn]

Hi this may be really obvious to some ppl but i dont find the answer on the webs :P

Yesterday i saw a shaman with http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47083 and he had 2 quick king's amber on the red and blue sockets, how the hell did he do that? quick kings amber is a yellow socket :S

Thanks in advance

[diseous]

Hi this may be really obvious to some ppl but i dont find the answer on the webs :P

Yesterday i saw a shaman with http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47083 and he had 2 quick king's amber on the red and blue sockets, how the hell did he do that? quick kings amber is a yellow socket :S

Thanks in advance

Just because it is a blue or red socket does not limit said socket to blue/red gems. You can put any gem in any socket, except regular gems in meta sockets.

[Barawr]

Hi this may be really obvious to some ppl but i dont find the answer on the webs :P

Yesterday i saw a shaman with http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47083 and he had 2 quick king's amber on the red and blue sockets, how the hell did he do that? quick kings amber is a yellow socket :S

Thanks in advance

Please oh please tell me you are just trolling. /shakesheadindisgust

If not . . . Welcome to the World of Warcraft MMORPG ;D

[Deleted]

Hi Sexy Shamans, i'm currently re-rolling a shammy who is battling her way through Northrend as Enhance. I'm loving the class but need to make my mind up on a couple of specs (bought dual spec) so figured I'd come to the Shaman forum on MMO for advice.

When it comes to Resto, do any of you bind spells to your mouse buttons, using addons like clique, in which case which spells do you bind? Being a paladin, I bind flash of light, holy light, shock, sacred shield and cleanse. Just wondering how many spells resto has in the toolbox and which are most important and most used so I can figure out my top 5 bindings.

Thanks

I have bound to mouse: Lesser healing wave, Chain heal, Riptide, Healing wave and cleanse spirit.
They should be your top 5 when healing.

[Winlol]

Don't forget earth shield. Good to have it bound so you can refresh it as needed without much trouble.

[comablack]

1 water shield
2 #showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help][target=player] Riptide
3 #showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help][target=player] Lesser Healing Wave
4 #showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help][target=player] Healing Wave
5 #showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help][target=player] Chain Heal

s3 /cast [target=tanksname] Earth Shield

thumb button on mouse is also the CH macro
pinky mouse button is Cleanse Spirit mouse over macro

[Deleted]

Don't forget earth shield. Good to have it bound so you can refresh it as needed without much trouble.

Of course I completely forgot about ES, thats set to my middle mouse button ><

[flexygirl]

i love healing as a resto shaman we are very op

[Isaq]

Good thread, thanks for all the info. As I went from T8 to T9 gear I noticed my haste dropped by quite a bit. My crit stayed about the same (around 30%) but why the lower haste in T9 resto gear? Especially since it's such a valuable stat for us?

[Shirahadori]

The only T9 you should be buying is the resto body and gloves, and possibly the elemental head/shoulders (they're good). Bliz tried to pull a fast one on shaman with tier 9 gear.

[comablack]

Sigh another idiot that thinks .05 seconds off chain heal is better than 5% crit to CH

The only T9 you should be buying is the resto body and gloves, and possibly the elemental head/shoulders (they're good). Bliz tried to pull a fast one on shaman with tier 9 gear.

[Shirahadori]

Too bad haste affects not only Chain Heal?