Resto Shaman stat question

[Fjaxx]

Hi all

I've been playing a resto shammy for a while now but i'm a little confused as to how I should be gearing my stats. Since I only play casually with friends nowadays I mainly just run heroic dungeons.

At the moment i'm using a crit heavy build but I'm wondering if I'm going about it the wrong way and should give mastery a go.

So my question is how do you recommend I gear my stats when mainly dungeoning and doing old content is concerned? Would mastery or perhaps haste be better to stack than crit?

Here's my armory for those who are interested: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...odshock/simple

Thanks!

[icedwarrior]

According to EJ (http://elitistjerks.com/f79/t121202-...pdating_4_2_a/), Int > SP > Spirit > Haste / Crit / Mastery (Haste, Crit, Mastery all have the same stat weight). I hate to point you to the direction of EJ and basically say "read up", but I'm not that fluent in shaman healing, so I don't want to spread false information based upon guessing. That said, it's just five man heroics, so I don't really think that it matters much. Play what you prefer, so long as people aren't dying.

[Luneward]

How do I recommend? However you feel suits your playstyle. The thing about our mastery, is that it changes in value from fight to fight. In fights where there's heavy party-wide damage, mastery is superior to anything. If you mostly just need to worry about keeping the tank topped off, crit edges it out. So long as you are above the haste softcap to get a few extra ticks of EL and RT off (which you are), you really don't need to worry too much about how you prioritize stats.

Shaman work well in that no single stat is our best stat, so we can change our stats to suit our playstyle. Mastery is more consistent, but crit plays off of a lot of our abilities. Read the resto shaman sticky for a better explanation, but my opinion is that unless you raid and are often shoehorned into a single role (crit for tank healers, mastery for raid healers), don't sweat the stats much so long as you have enough haste and spirit.

Edit: In response to the poster above: Haste is a nice stat for any healer, but our tidal waves ability already makes us one of the fastest single target healers (at least reliably), so it just isn't as important as it might be for other healers.

[Fjaxx]

Thanks for the replies guys
Perhaps i'll reforge some of my crit back to mastery and balance it out a little, see how it goes.

[Alltat]

Same as when gearing for raiding, really:
Intellect > spirit until comfortable > haste up to 916 > mastery > crit = more haste

This means you want double intellect trinkets and want all your gems to be red, orange (ideally int/mastery) or purple. 916 haste is to get you an extra tick on Earthliving (with Wrath of Air or equivalent), which is +25% healing for the EL HoT. It also gets you extra ticks on Healing Rain and Riptide (though the actual plateaus for those are a bit lower). Don't overvalue spirit at the cost of other stats, or you'll end up having to spend extra mana to compensate for your weaker heals.

Remember that while mastery is generally better in heroic mode raiding than other content, it's always a great stat. It'll help you when things are looking grim, and those are the only times when your stat choices really matter.

[Zaelyn]

I personally go all haste. I love being able to drop a quick big heal when its needed. My personal priority list is Int>Haste>Spirit>Mastery>Crit. But again a LOT of people use different itemization.

Here is my toon (although for some reason I have an Int+Mastery gem in my chest) But you can see all my reforging is to haste/spiritZaelyn - Duskwood

[Deleted]

Haste cap is 916 for a new tick of earthliving, next is 2005 for new riptide tick.
Assuming that 2005 is a lot of haste against a good portion of mastery and crit, 916 is a good haste cap.

Then there is a simple equation between mastery and crit that could be resolve as:
health < 44% -> Mastery
health > 44% -> Crit

Also spirit could be compare with crit for his mana regen, and another equation could suggest:
Spirit ~ 1800-2000
Crit ~ 24% unbuffed (with +3% crit talent)

In a 10m you could reach 33% full buffed and it means ~ 2/3 of your healing crit (Healing wave have an hight crit change with riptide buff, but this depend on you healing rotation).
I've Mastery ~ 13%, Crit ~ 24% and Spirit ~ 1948 (2448 with Darkmoon Tsunami) and i feel good both in healing and mana regen.

[Tyratops]

I personally think Crit is the best stat for easier content, Mastery is a waste on easier/older content as damage is lighter and it wont be as effective, haste is fine.. just bear in mind the extra HPM cost when managing regen stats also.

[Alltat]

It should be noted that the 2005 haste cap isn't recommended unless you're in full 378 gear or better, as you'll have to give up a lot of other stats to get it. It's definitely not recommended if you have to use a haste trinket (or other trinket reforged to haste) or have to replace any intellect enchants/gems with haste.