*Restoration Shaman FAQ (3.3)*

[Kissmyhammer]

A small note to use CH for main tank healing.

On quite a few bosses the tank(s) tends to not want melee on them because of cleave and etc. Thus chain heal will have less effect for the MT healing. Still its worth throwing on quite a lot of fights, as the range is quite high, and the chance that it will jump and make it even more efficient is quite high.

Also the CD on Riptide is 6 seconds, and to refresh the 30% speed buff for Healing wave, chain heal is a good option, if you cant wait for the Riptide to get off CD.

[Jenerena]

Ok I'm back. Well, things have changed slightly since my post earlier. For a start, I have started healing heroic modes due to lack of availability of our holy paladin. Though at the moment I am sort of healing some if not most of the time, and dpsing on my demo lock the other times. But I quite like the healing game, my shammy is well geared now, and I don't want to be switching across characters for the sake of hogging loot and getting un-needed badges on the lock. So I've decided to put some work into my elemental gear and go shammy full time.

I have so far healed all bosses, heroic being the first three bosses with not much trouble, Rotface, Festergut, Blood prince, BQL, and got my second kingslayer title. I am starting to have some mana issues in heroic but with three druids there are always innervates to spare. I do have a few questions as having done dps as a lock for a long time the healing game is still fairly new to me so there's alot I need to learn.

1) Gemming. This is confusing me a little at the moment. My armoury:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...sVtRirHYykqqJs
I got that chest last night which i was happy with (dirty cloth again), but I was so unsure how to gem it up. I went crit since my LHW seems to be always under 1 sec cast. Considering with my 2 set bonus and totem I try to keep riptide up all the time for super hasted healing waves under tidal waves, but I can't help thinking all that haste is going to waste. Around 50% of my healing is LHW, I don't use chain heal that much being a tank healer in a 3 healer setup including a resto druid, and healing waves when I can get away with super hasted ones or tough spike damage. It's really hard to know which stats to go for etc. Do I leave my haste as it is? Gem for crit? Gem for intellect to save innervates?

2) Predictive healing. I found on fights such as council HM where the main tank was tanking two of them to be very hard and often unpredictable on healing with two beating on him. So I was mindlessly spamming for the sake of being scared of letting him die. To be fair my raid leader said to do it and feed me innervates. But innervates were on cooldown and pot and totem had been used at <10% of the bosses health left. I'm not sure if that is a dps issue, or something I need to pop an mp5 flask for (though lose throughput). Long story short, I find it hard to find the 'line' with mp5 as it is so dependent on fight and healing roles, and just wondered how you manage this?

3) I healed Dreamwalker for the first time last night, very interesting. I only managed to get out around 14k HPS which is pretty low. I only had around 15 stacks by the end and our resto druid had the same and did the same, but still. I was going with riptide then 4xhealing wave then riptide again. Is that optimal? I also had to move a fair bit since I was dropped at the other side at the end of the phase.

4) Theorycrafting. In terms of stats and gear, is HEP a good way to go? I did the simcraft thing with my lock, but as that focuses more on dps I'm not sure how to go with optimising as a healer. I'm a bit of a min/maxer so i'm keen to apply the same principles to my healing.

There's probably tons more I could ask but hopefully you guys could help a fresh resto shammy. If you're any good at logs as well there's some for you to gander at for some of our hard modes this week, and also last week.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/satuk4ws2g54zukt/
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/3z4p1dgk2ajkzzbl/
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/4pnk3s4hgc5p6fdg/

[Deleted]

@Jenerena: TLDR




I kid I kid

1) You logged out in your Elemental gear so can't really say anything there.
But if you are only healing 10m fights then haste starts to become less usefull. If you are soft cap on LHW and hardly chain heal I would reconmend going for a spell power set up. You shouldn't be going oom, with the right set up of gear/trinkets, also never bother now we are end game to gem Int. If you can log out in your Restoration gear im sure I, and others, can look into it more anyways.

2) Honestly thats pretty much the same for me when I heal princes hardmode. Just spam Lhw, with ES up, use mana tide with a hynm of hope (if you have a preist). With that many innervates in your raid group I don't see why you should have a problem. Would help to see your trinkets, a solace or 2 make a huge difference on that fight

3) Generally riptide, x4HW is best, depends on the amount of haste you have. 15stacks is pretty low is the problem with your HPS there. By the end of the fight you should more be looking at 20-30stacks (or more).

4) HEP can be a good way, but just use it as a basic guide. Never trust a sim fully, as healing goes its always worth gemming what you feel you need to help your raid members alive.

[Jenerena]

Should be updated now. Don't have solace, been trying to get it in pugs but with no success.

[Raigore]

Hi there, I'm a main-spec Enhancement Shaman that respecs Resto for our 10 man runs. I've read alot about resto, but considering most of my reads were based under the assumption that they were healing 25 mans also. I'm also interested in knowing how many or which Pieces of tier I should aim for, and if the 4set is worth it in 10 mans or not.

Therefore I wasn't sure if there's any exclusivity that would apply to a 10man only shaman, whether in choice of gear, spells,trinket selection or anything that might be insightful to me.

I apologize because I know cases like mine are common, but any tip would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[Corgrash]

Hi, first off apologies if my comments I am about to make are not correct, or are against what this thread is about. Just putting in my own personal experience and opinion into shaman healing in some hope it may benefit someone or even someone spots my mistakes and it benefits me.

Healing wave is great when you know you can land a large needed heal. You should only use it with Tidal waves up. An example of this is phase 1 Mimiron during the plasma blast. You should never be spamming this spell, unless you enjoy being out of mana.

There is only 1 boss I have ever used Healing Wave on. Valithria.
The reason being, with the talents in Healing Way, you heal for around 14-22k (including crits) maybe even more. Members of your raid will have around 20-35k HP, for healing wave to become more efficient than Lesser Healing Wave, the casualty needs to have taken a substantial amount of dmg. However in that scenario, the casualty needs to be healed fast otherwise the next hit may be the last they take before they are dead. Why would you cast a long cast big heal when an instant riptide followed by a LHW can pretty much fully heal the raid member and be quick enough to hopefully prevent the death that maybe HW would not of saved.

For tank healing, I find that LHW with the glyph of LHW is way more efficient at tank healing than HW. Its similar to a Paladins flash of light except we have no Beacon.
True, you could get a better HPS using RT, HWx2, CH, HWx2 repeat but this is merely assuming the target is never full health. Its not effecient at all.

With HW not being used, the talents in Healing Way would therefore be useless and better spent elsewhere.

Mp5
Mp5 and improved water shield is the only source we have to regan our mana. Therefore Mp5 is a very important stat. In 3.2 it was buffed on gear so you should not have to gem for it as it comes in bucket loads from gear.

You forget the simple Mana potion and Mana Tide Totem
If you seek to stack lots of haste and also have a fair chunk of crit, your MP5 will be low as most items will be SP / Haste / Crit.
However, I find that using a low MP5 with 1 mana back trinket, plus effective use of the mana potion and Mana Tide totem, is enough to ensure you dont go OOM.
This is with around a 90% uptime on casting, with as close to 100% uptime on water shield.

I shall use the Lich King encounter 25man as an example as it is the longest by far in ICC.
P1: LHW + ES on the tanks helping with the tank healing. Disc Priests are shielding the infest however any that do break through are sorted instantly with a Riptide. You get to the transition at around 30% mana providing you are helping out throughout that phase.

Transition 1: Wait till the first Ragin spirit debuff is cast and then put down Mana Tide totem providing its not you. This will regen your mana and those nearby in your group to around 80% (with water shield procs from dmg taken). You will be chain healing each section of your raid suffering dmg.

P2: ES + LHW on the Tanks, RT and LHW on those who still have Infest after Priest absorbs (maybe a chain heal if a group of them have the infest ofc). At 30% mana, use a Mana pot to keep you up.

Transition 2: Same as transition 1. Mana Tide Totem should be off cd by now and ready to send you back to 80% mana.

P3: Your mana should sustain you through this phase till Fury of Frostmourne.



Here is my armory to show you what I am using to do all of this. However the heroic items I did not have back when I first healed the LK in 25man.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...ng&cn=Corgrash

[Baron01]

Therefore I wasn't sure if there's any exclusivity that would apply to a 10man only shaman, whether in choice of gear, spells,trinket selection or anything that might be insightful to me.

4pT10 is great bonus but it has less use in 10-man encounters where you simply do not have that many targets/jumps available for your CH.
It was generally agreed that combination of 2pT9 &2pT10 is very good alternative for 10-man raiding--adding flexibility and more spot-healing power rather than never-ending CH spam that will do good in 25-man raid. Ideal combination is head & shoulders from T10 and chest&hands from T9 set. I have ICC craftable cloth pants, which completes my gear set in either setup. You want to have ilvl245 T9 pieces at which point you will not even realize you are dropping ilvl251 set pieces--in fact you will see significant improvement in haste as T9 (hands/chest) have huge amount of haste at that ilvl.

I also tend to prefer bit more spellpower over haste in 10-man gear setup, therefore, I swap around trinkets and few gear pieces.
I end up with approximately 150SP more and 20-30 haste less in 10-man setup compared to 4pT10.

My main spells are LHW and Riptide. CH and HW are used freely when needed. I tend to tank heal in this setup as we do not have holy paladin in our 10-man raid.

[Jenerena]

Baron, I tend to go with just the 2 piece T10 when i tank heal in 10man. I would think the off pieces with more spell power, sockets etc would be worth more. Just a thought. Here is my armoury. Is my gemming a bit off? I usually tank heal though some of my items I also use for elemental when i dps, so I need to be neutral in places. I occasionally raid heal. My crit is a bit low, yes, but I'm not sure I should really gem for it...

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...tus&cn=Jenster

ps. usually have LHW glyph but was raid healing last night. Rarely run out of mana though we have 3 druids so i often get innervates.

[Baron01]

The reason for 2pT9 & 2pT10 is the way these 2 bonuses complement each other. 2 pieces of T9 I use (hands&chest) at lvl245 have huge amount of haste on them with minimal loss of stats compared to ilvl251 items.
I believe shaman should not gem straight SP so that would be my only open item. You are still not on haste soft cap so there should be no problem with 12sp/10 haste--which should be just fine also for elemental. Definitely do not gem for crit. I cant find any situation, in which you would like to gem for crit.

[Jenerena]

That was more for elemental sake, really. I think I'll just replace the 23 sp gem with sp/haste.

I think i might try and get the earthsoul boots, actually. The ones I have are not far off but the blue socket lets them down. To make the crafted ones neutral I can just go sp/haste in both.

I'll take a look at 2 piece T9, but as my helm was always my offpiece, and i have shoulders/gloves T10, I don't have the T9 helm, and I guess the 232 one won't be worth it.

[Baron01]

You should reconsider your next steps in gearing. I would never pick head as off-set item, definitely not with T10 in mind. You eventually want 4pT10 which means you should try to the best itemized pieces from 5 available. Head, chest and shoulders are sporting all that resto shaman want, haste and crit. Remaining 2 pieces are unfortunately having mp5 and crit, which is sub-optimal. Since you still need 1 more piece for 4pT10 bonus, you should pick gloves as pants are stat heavier--and as such it will be better to use optimal piece in the slot (Leggings of Woven Death). This is valid for situation where you do not have access to 25HC loot, at which point you would pick T10 pants and HC version of gloves dropping from ship.

2pT9 is 20% more healing from Riptide. This is working very well in conjunction with 2pT10, which grants 20% spell haste. Riptide will become very strong tool as it will be healing for a lot while boosting your next spell for situations where you need either big heal (HW) or AOE healing (CH). Above combination is also very strong on fights like LDW 10 where you generaly spread to avoid D&D hitting too many people. You will spam RT on frost bolt targets and can use 1sec LHW to cover rest of minor damage round--aka spot healing.
It is definitely worthwhile to get 245 T9 but you might be unlucky like me with rolls on trophies. I decided to pay some money rather than chance my luck any further. I have bought 1 for 550g last week and plan to get 2nd one this week for whatever it takes

[Jenerena]

Yea, I think I agree. Thing is I have only recently switched mains so my priority was to get my shammy geared as much as possible. It is a bit of a pain as due to availability I am having to switch between dps/healing alot so my badges are very much needed for my elemental gear at the moment as I still in full T9. I kept the helm as the off piece as I was lucky to win it from an ICC pug, and was the best offpiece I had at that point. Then i won the 264 gloves from Voa, and already had the T10 shoulders, hence my setup. I do have the 245 gloves and chest T9, but since I won the VoA gloves I had to replace the T9 ones just for the bonus.

I still need to get a huge 4 pieces of T10 for elemental, so the tradeoff for me by getting the T10 helm for resto, and going back to 245 T9 gloves/chest is going to delay gearing elemental up. So i'm not sure it will be worth it until I have both up to date, then I can min/max a little better. I have healed up to Sindragosa hard mode with not much trouble. But every little helps.

Thanks for your input anyway, I am hoping to maybe win some elemental gear from either VoA10/25 in the next few weeks. Currently the 4 piece T9 for elemental is that good, switching to T10 is only going to be worth it if I go for the full 4 pieces.

[Darcam]

I have seen a few posters refer to BiS-lists and was kinda hoping to find them in here? Did I miss something? I know there is a huge list on EJ - but I can't seem to find a BiS list there either. Could anyone point me in the direction of a BiS List for restos? Like a wowhead profile or something...

[Nagu]

Can I get a resto BiS list that doesn't say to take the Tier Gloves and Pants? Whenever I see one that says to take both of those I just close it.

[Cyrahurn]

I have seen a few posters refer to BiS-lists and was kinda hoping to find them in here? Did I miss something? I know there is a huge list on EJ - but I can't seem to find a BiS list there either. Could anyone point me in the direction of a BiS List for restos? Like a wowhead profile or something...

Can I get a resto BiS list that doesn't say to take the Tier Gloves and Pants? Whenever I see one that says to take both of those I just close it.

For some reason I can't link it but EJ's is http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t99442-s..._Slot_********


Edited for link

[Schintus]

Hey... I just noticed that you didn't mention Headguard of Inner Warmth/Helm of Inner Warmth (75 Emblem of Triumph) - I think it is clearly superior to the T9 head, because of the bucket load of haste (66 rating), 10 more mp5 and 18 more healing...

[Nagu]

Me and another Resto Shaman in my guild were arguing over whether it was better to use a Reckless Ametrine and an Energized Eye of Zul, or to use a Nightmare Tear, to meet the requirements of Insightful Earthsiege Diamond (1 yellow, 1 red, 1 blue). Do you think you could solve this problem for us?
Thanks.

[Seriss]

Hey... I just noticed that you didn't mention Headguard of Inner Warmth/Helm of Inner Warmth (75 Emblem of Triumph) - I think it is clearly superior to the T9 head, because of the bucket load of haste (66 rating), 10 more mp5 and 18 more healing...

Elemental T9 is even better as it has a crit/haste itemisation. Resto T9 wasn't very good. You only ever wore 2 pieces of it which were ideally chest and gloves as everything else left a lot to be desired. You're better off with 3 non-set pieces than with the underwhelming 4pc bonus.

Me and another Resto Shaman in my guild were arguing over whether it was better to use a Reckless Ametrine and an Energized Eye of Zul, or to use a Nightmare Tear, to meet the requirements of Insightful Earthsiege Diamond (1 yellow, 1 red, 1 blue). Do you think you could solve this problem for us?
Thanks.

Let's take 2 empty sockets. Because we're looking at what happens if we use 1 orange and 1 green gem or rather a prismatic and yellow one.

Let's look at what we get...

Assume we use a Reckless Ametrine (sp/haste) and an Energized Eye of Zul (haste/mp5).

We gain 12 sp, 20 haste (and 5 mp5 but... whatever. You could also use a haste/stam green gem there, just saying. Though most of us still prefer mp5, even though we don't really depend on it).

Assume that we use a Nightmare Tear in a blue socket and a 20 haste gem in the second socket.

We gain 10 int, 10 stam, 10 agi, 10 str, 10 spi. And 20 haste.

Do we need 10 agi, 10 str, 10 spi? Not at all.
Do we need more int? Not really.
Do we need more stam? Not completely wasted as it adds to survivability, but... not really needed either.
And we get 20 haste.

Let's leave stam and mp5 out of the big picture, okay?

So that is what we're looking at:

Haste gain remains the same in the two scenarios.
And then we're looking at 12 sp vs. 10 int. Which is int that we don't need because we have enough mana. Alright, we gain a tiny bit of crit and sp from that int as well, but whatever. We don't really need the spellpower either, but still, it's more of a throughput stat than the other ones.

No matter which way you gem your stuff, you will probably not feel much of a difference if any at all. The most important stat that is haste remains the same in both scenarios. It just looks like you don't know what you're doing if you gem such useless things as 10 agi, 10 str, 10 spi and stam which is basically what you're doing when using a Nightmare Tear.

Oh and I forgot... Using your two gems in good places will allow you to grab 2 socket bonuses which further add spellpower (that's the most common socket bonus these days)

[ranku]

@pearroc just so you know the links you use for the preraid items are buged because the stats are all wrong. for example none of those items have spirit on them yet the links say they do.

[Deleted]

That's just because the mmo-champ data base is updated for cataslym.