Restoration Guide to MoP

[naihan]

sticky worthy!

[Deleted]

Please stop spamming with 'Sticky this!'. As said, we aren't sticky-ing any MoP Guides yet. When we take down all the Cata guides then we will sticky this. Less spam please We want guides to be useful for people in the future and if they have to sift through pages and pages of "Sticky this" before they find extra useful information your actually damaging the integrity of the guide.

[PERICOL]

Thank you for the effort,i really apreciate. All on the Table!

[Irisel]

While a great guide, there are a lot of biased opinions in the description of things.

[Deleted]

Don't know if I'm happy or depressed about this.
On one hand Shaman Restoration probably didn't change THAT much and gained several new interesting tools.
On the other hand I don't really see the full potential of what Blizzard claimed about "no cookie-cutter builds!"
I still see a lot of "mandatory" talents/glyphs, which will be used in 98% of the fights, and I don't really like this.

I'm particularly disappointed in the bad balancement of the Riptide Glyph. I think it's a very nice idea, but atm it's not an "option", it's a mandatory glyph, "forcing" me to play Shaman in a completely different way that I wouldn't mind on a rare situation here and there, but I certainly do mind it when I'm supposed to use it 90% of the time and raid leaders will "force" me to get it if I wanna keep my raid spot.


Really, I never liked the way they announced the new direction for the talent system, but I thought it probably was a "necessary evil" to achieve the goals they were aiming for. A necessary compromise.
But if those goals are not reached, or not completely, then was it really worth to go this direction?
I don't claim having an answer for that question of course, nobody has and nobody will for a good while, but still I'm a bit perplexed, and sad about being imposed a way to play instead of the promised freedom of choice.

[Seriss]

I'm particularly disappointed in the bad balancement of the Riptide Glyph. I think it's a very nice idea, but atm it's not an "option", it's a mandatory glyph, "forcing" me to play Shaman in a completely different way that I wouldn't mind on a rare situation here and there, but I certainly do mind it when I'm supposed to use it 90% of the time and raid leaders will "force" me to get it if I wanna keep my raid spot.

See, that's one glyph that I don't consider mandatory at all. I tried it on the beta, and it was an absolute nuisance to me. There is no necessity at all to blanket a raid in riptides when we can keep up 3 riptides anyway and have a lot of other casts to make. The glyph takes away that rather lovely big instant heal that I can cast while moving. I liked that though, and playing with the glyph just doesn't feel like playing a shaman. I'm not a druid and therefore I will not heal like one. End of story.

Others may like the glyph though. That's their choice. If they like that alteration to their healing style, more power to them.

So... Hi! I'll be one of the shamans who will ensure that Ghostcrawler will not nerf the RT glyph due to it being 'mandatory' because it isn't. And if I should feel that the glyph will give me an easier time for one or two encounters, it'll go in. But... frankly... I don't see the necessity for the glyph.

[Deleted]

I liked that though, and playing with the glyph just doesn't feel like playing a shaman. I'm not a druid and therefore I will not heal like one. End of story.

That's exactely my point.
I considered it a very awesome idea/option and I was glad it was there....
...as long as it remained an option allowing people to choose the way they wanna play.
I think maybe I'm giving the idea I'm being inconsistent/incoherent now.

What I wanted to say is that *personally* I don't like it for the reasons Seriss said as well as others, but I was happy they thought about such an additional option that players can choose from, even though I wouldn't probably make use of it (if not on rare occasions).
Hope it's clearer now.

Others may like the glyph though. That's their choice. If they like that alteration to their healing style, more power to them.

If it really was an option I wouldn't be here exposing my skepticism. I'd just be happy for the additional different playstyle it gets offered to us shamans.
But judging from most comments/guides I read around, it seems it's a semi-mandatory glyph because of the additional healing power it provides, at least on paper.
Trying to imagine a future where I won't get a raidspot unless I use that glyph made me a bit sad, that's all.
And that's why I called it "currently not perfectly balanced".

Of course if it turns out these guides are all wrong and the glyph is just an option then most of what I said is moot. But it seems to me these people have quite some good data to support their opinions which, hence, are not much "opinions" anymore?

And btw, I used the Glyph of Riptide as a specific example, but it seems to me what I described is an overall tendency for many talents/glyphs across many classes.
It seems to me cookie-cutters aren't gone or mostly gone, they're just more "hidden" to the eye.
We're going from 1-2 cookie cutter builds for each spec, used for the majority of the content, to 3-5 cookie-cutter builds used specifically for different fights.
Seems more or less the same to me at the end of the day? If not worse, because having to constantly swap your talents/glyphs every 5 minutes doesn't really seem like the most advanced/well thought game mechanic to me, is it?

Unless Blizzard thinks about supporting this by expanding the dual-spec UI, in that case I wouldn't have much to complain. But having to re-set keybinds, mousebinds and actionbars (even if only slightly for those 2-3 abilities you switch around) and having to spend time and consumables each time you do this sounds like a frustrating mechanic, on the long run, that takes more from the game experience than it's supposed to add.
I hope I'll be proved wrong, of course I'm just giving early impressions, too early to point fingers and I'm aware of that.

[Deleted]

Very nice guide! I'll be reading this over and over during maintenance on wednesday

[Yibsu]

"Three of the Four Winds" Hah.

p.s. good informational thread even though I disagree with a few parts of it.
p.s.s. I would love to see a section on Grounding Totem and its role in this tier's fights, if anyone has that information confirmed. I tested all of them but admittedly forgot to use it on every single mechanic.

[Table]

I don't recall reading anywhere in the guild about the passive mastery buff that shaman will be giving to raid members and themselves. It's called Grace of Air; it provides 893 mastery at 85 and 3000 mastery at 90.

IMO, taking that into account I would agree that crit tends to lend itself to being better overall. That's not to say crit is best, only that because of the passive mastery buff, mastery's weight is diminished somewhat.

But if we're just talking about the tier 14, new progression, I go more mastery, myself, when health tends to be lower over the course of the fights, but from an end-game PoV I go with crit.

Mastery scales linearly, so the mastery raid buff has no effect on the value of 100 mastery. Mastery is a very strong stat, especially in hard modes but it must be balanced with mana, especially with the way tier 14 is looking. Crit gives back mana while also giving throughput, which puts it at the top while people are still struggling with mana. Mastery is still a very viable option as it outdoes crit and haste when below 50% HP so it will be very useful in hard modes.

While a great guide, there are a lot of biased opinions in the description of things.

What parts specifically seem biased? I try not to make it seem like their is mandatory talents/glyphs or only one way to heal as a shaman.

"Three of the Four Winds" Hah.

p.s. good informational thread even though I disagree with a few parts of it.
p.s.s. I would love to see a section on Grounding Totem and its role in this tier's fights, if anyone has that information confirmed. I tested all of them but admittedly forgot to use it on every single mechanic.

What parts do you disagree with? And the Grounding Totem idea is a good one, I will add that as soon as I can.

[Yibsu]

What parts do you disagree with? And the Grounding Totem idea is a good one, I will add that as soon as I can.

Stat priority and the suggested use of some spells. I can't really go into more depth than that. Don't worry though, this guide is excellent, succinct and great for anyone picking up their Resto spec again in this expansion for the most part.

[karrad]

I wish we had more choice in our 90 talents, and that primal elementalist was less clunky.

Maybe something like this for unleashed fury

Earthliving weapon-Further increases the effectiveness of your next single-target heal on the targeted ally by 50%.
If the target is effected by Earth Shield that player is healed for an additional amount for each lost charge.
If the target is effected by Riptide then it will be refreshed to maximum duration, and spread to the 3 lowest raid/party members within 8 yards.

[Table]

Updated some parts so I thought I would bump this to the first page.

Still have some work to do but I am looking to finish most of the parts by next week when the beta goes down.

[Avengerx]

A very nice guide indeed.
Weren't stat priorities roughly the same at the start of cata? At least I seem to remember that for approximately the first raid tier, crit was the most favored secondary throughoutput stat (after haste softcap ofc).

[Chimaera]

A very nice guide indeed.
Weren't stat priorities roughly the same at the start of cata? At least I seem to remember that for approximately the first raid tier, crit was the most favored secondary throughoutput stat (after haste softcap ofc).

Mastery received significant buffs since then, both to the % value from rating and to apply to all healing and not just the direct portions. That being said I have felt like the efficiency value of crit has been undersold most of the expansion.

[Rodrigo]

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 !

[Keiyra]

Doubtful Rodrigo - even when we had 3 charges many of those aoe damage effects on boss fights didn't trigger the shield. (some do, some don't)

It prolly uses the same mechanics so most fights i don't think you'll be getting enough procs to make up for the lost passive regen (Spine heroic is one where you might, because all the little bloods that manage to get a hit on you here and there will proc it). Personally I'm not using that glyph. It's prolly a glyph with pvp in mind, just my 2cp.

[Nikez]

Hello guys, i would ask about Astral Shift CD on the first tree of our talent ( level 15 )

does it only reduce Physical dmg taken / or all dmg taken which include magical dmg and physical dmg ?

thank you.

[Keiyra]

Hello guys, i would ask about Astral Shift CD on the first tree of our talent ( level 15 )

does it only reduce Physical dmg taken / or all dmg taken which include magical dmg and physical dmg ?

thank you.

Its all damage sources. If it was only physical, or only magical, it would say so. (Like it does for Divine Protection for Pallys)

[Zues]

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.