Restoration Shaman Cataclysm Guide

[irpa]

Great work

[Alteris]

Awesome will do. I was talking about withing changes in their posts, like editing them. But dont want to thread Jack ya

[Plutos]

Was searching for some gear discussion.Thanks a lot for this thread!!

Just my input on healing heroics

-avoid letting earth shield drop from tank as your HW heals for more.

-aim to get HW mana neutral as spamming it allows keeping all health in check.(Not sure how much Regen is required, can anybody do the math :P )

- drop healing stream totem if you get BoM on you.

-Tear of Blood & Blood of Isiset trinket procs drop Mana tide - great mana recovery ( Am trying to create a Power aura to notify me but getting bugs to monitor both the buff)

- triage healing make a choice whom to heal for how much. Once you learn the fights you can anticipate the amount of healing Necessary

[Instant]

I just realized that wowhead lied to me :S

There is indeed weapon with crit and spirit, obtainable if one has reputation with Hellscream's Reach

http://www.wowhead.com/item=62478

But best weapon to get until this, is one from arena quest in Twilight Highlands

http://www.wowhead.com/item=63790

[Crewsayter]

No mail specialization. As for now my character (with few hc blues and blues) has 3276 INT unbuffed. 5% of that would be ~160 INT. At this moment i belive it's not strong enough to outweight stats on some cloth/leather armor.

I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. The benefit to mail specialization is so much more than any 1 epic non-mail upgrade would give you (unless you had just an absolutely terrible item beforehand in which case a blue heroic mail would still be a better upgrade). I'll give you an example. Looking only at int, since that's the only thing mail specialization affects:

I have 3974 int before the 5% bonus, which brings it up to 4173, a difference of 199. I currently have Helm of the Inward Eye which has 242 int on it. If I was to "upgrade" to Helm of the Blind Seer (Leather Epic) with 281 int, I would gain 39 int but lose my 5% bonus, which would bring me down to 4013 int. So that epic cost me 160 int for the gain of 52 spi and 11 crit. Personally I don't see that as being a good trade off. Looking over the items it looks like each epic is only a ~35 int over it's heroic blue counterpart, which would mean I would need 4-5 epics to make up for not having mail specialization, which is almost your entire armor set.

Final point, you said your bonus would be ~160 which to you isn't worth it. 160 int is 4 rare quality red gems. 160 int is 4 ring enchants. 160 int is 3+ cloak enchants. I don't know about you but my raid leader wouldn't give me a spot if I was missing gems or enchants.

[Instant]

You missed my point.

Of course that if ALL my items were mail, then i'd pick another mail item even if it had 'wrong' stats. My point was that 'mail specialization' shouldn't stop you from getting items other than mail. And shouldn't stop you upgrading from green items to hc blues, just because hc blues aren't mail.

This was supposed to be pre-raiding gear list. Which de facto means just hc blues and maybe 1 or 2 epics for reputation. This also means that in most cases you'll be switching greenies, or 316-333 blue items.

Now, if you'd obtained all of BiS i mentioned it would be good idea to skip over shoulders and get some other which is mail 346. But to be honest i thought it's kinda logical, but seems it's not.

So for everyone who believes that i don't give a crap about ~200 int:

IT's not true. But it's WAY BETTER to have all your items made of leather, than to keep your green mail items. This was my point, that's what i had in mind, and i don't know how to make it more clear for everyone.

[Crewsayter]

You're right, I missed your point. But to be fair, your point is very confusing. You said this was a pre-raid gear list. To me, that means this is the gear that I would wear into a raid. I personally would never wear cloth/leather into a raid. In the same paragraph you mention switching out greens and low level blues. That's not pre-raid imo, that's pre-heroic. If someone badly needs an upgrade to queue for heroics and a cloth/leather will do it then that's understandable, I just didn't realize that you were making that point (again cause I wouldn't call that a pre-raid list but w/e).

At any rate, you also confused your point by linking cloth/leather epics from raids. People aren't going to be upgrading to those from green items, not gonna happen. So in essence you are telling people that you don't care about the specialization because it's ok to gimp yourself by getting those upgrades. This is the point I was trying to get across. If you are properly geared for raids (all mail) then not one of those non-mail epics are an upgrade. If you're not properly geared for a raid, then you're just hurting yourself and your fellow raiders.

Final point, it is relatively easy to get a 333 mail set to get into heroics. From there it is just a matter of getting drops and buying with JP a 346 mail set. Like I said, I can understand cloth/leather for heroics if it's really needed but I wouldn't go so far as to recommend any of them. Just my opinion.

[Instant]

At first i wanted to make mail only, BiS list. Which would include only 1 item per slot. But then i thought it's hard to get just this one item, and since i'm already doing it i can link other items as well.

That's why there is a separate category with 'no crit items'.

I specifically said that my list is set for spirit/crit items. And this REALLY does change a lot. If an item has 160 mastery rating, and a different item has 160 crit rating, then the latter is worth 160 of a stat more. Which is exactly 4 gems, or a difference that a 'mail specialization' would have made.

To make it more clear (because i think you still didn't get purpose of my list ).

Full mail gear that has chest and helm, both with 160 mastery rating, is (imho) WORSE setup that, non mail set with chest and helm which both have 160 crit rating. You can argue with that, i don't mind.

As for rest of your post. I jumped to HC as soon as i met 329ilvl requirement. I had 5 green items on me, and still managed to finish HC. I cannot imagine anyone who'll first get full blue item set, just to step into hc where he can get full hc blue set.

As for your opinion that noone will upgrade his items for cloth or leather epics... This is simply not true at all. If i didn't have full mail set, and there was no lock/mage/priest/druid i'd definitely want to put my hands on helm, shoulders, belt or legs which are non mail, but have best stats. I've coe to conclusion that it's worth to mention those items, just in case.

And finally. I never said my list is THE only one, best and nonarguable list ever. I said what the concepts which i based my list on are, and made a list accordingly. If you don't agree with it, thats fine, please make one yourself and we can delete mine. But please don't say i confused this or that, just because it doesn't fit in YOUR vision of BiS list Especially since cataclysm adds a lot of variables (reforge and mail specialization).

I don't find mail specialization attractive enough (at current level of gear) to overweigh stats on other items (not one single, but many as i've said in previous post). I personally wouldn't aim for specialization for a sake of having it.

[Monkiman]

I was just looking at your weapons list and I dont know if this should be in there or not but the baradin wardens rep mace you get when revered has crit and spirit in it. the Shimmering Morningstar

[Alteris]

I also thought the scepter of power had some as well...
from HoO...., cant link yet.

[Wugan]

I consider Totemic Focus a must have talent. It gives you a pretty nice boost to your Mana Tide, which is huge for regen.

[Sard]

I consider Totemic Focus a must have talent. It gives you a pretty nice boost to your Mana Tide, which is huge for regen.

Ya frankly its a must. Totemic Focus with Mana Tide and an on use spirit trinket is pretty much the core regen combo for raiding and why Core of Ripeness should probably be every resto shaman's first Valor Point purchase.

[takolin]

I got a question for heroics and totems.

When there's no source of the MP5 buff, should I put down healing stream or mana spring totem or does it depend on what kind of damage is going out?

Or in a different wording: is the loss of mana regen worth the extra healing you get from HST?

[Deleted]

Respect for the best cata resto info source.
I've tried finding some other info resources but nothing even comes close!
However if you know any, plz share

[Deleted]

I got a question for heroics and totems.

When there's no source of the MP5 buff, should I put down healing stream or mana spring totem or does it depend on what kind of damage is going out?

Or in a different wording: is the loss of mana regen worth the extra healing you get from HST?

I'd say for now mana spring is definitely the way to go. Unless you're already at the point where you don't struggle with mana at all, healing stream will not be worth it.

[Instant]

I was just looking at your weapons list and I dont know if this should be in there or not but the baradin wardens rep mace you get when revered has crit and spirit in it. the Shimmering Morningstar

I just realized that wowhead lied to me :S

There is indeed weapon with crit and spirit, obtainable if one has reputation with Hellscream's Reach

http://www.wowhead.com/item=62478

But best weapon to get until this, is one from arena quest in Twilight Highlands

http://www.wowhead.com/item=63790

I think that moderator didn't have time to update the list.

[Hanto]

Thank you for the post. I've been thinking haste was still superior for a while, but thankfully I already have like half of the things you've mentioned that are good for pre-raid items and I can just regem int-crit for yellows.

[Seriss]

I'd say for now mana spring is definitely the way to go. Unless you're already at the point where you don't struggle with mana at all, healing stream will not be worth it.

I used to put down mana spring... until I realised that Healing Stream can take care of minor injuries almost on its own. It also provides resistance to some types of magic. So I always use Healing Stream now.

[Thela]

Ok, I gotta say this is a decent guide but by no means is all the information correct.

First off, cleansing waters IS MOST DEFINATELY a talent every resto shaman will want to take. Sure there are fights you won't dispell anything on, but those are remote by far from the ones you will be. And any talent point spent to add a free heal to an ability is almost unbelievably good. Definately needs to be changed from the main post, since cleansing waters has saved people more often than not.

Also, nature's swiftness is a between talent for me. I see use for it in pvp where there is a point to having an instant cast heal that's uninterruptable. Outside in the pve world, if you're using it, you will force a GCD on your abilities in a world where haste isn't as massive as it was in WOTLK. Even in WOTLK I wouldn'y be caught dead using this ability on my shaman due to the fact my heals hit the GCD in the first place. If someone needs you to burn NS, they are probably doing something wrong. Speccing to support that habit is a bad move. I also have no use for ancestral swiftness, as I'd rather spend the points on totemic reach which makes your healing stream(should always be down unless using mana tide) reach a much larger zone. It is a vast improvement for spread fights and is very raid friendly. If you have speed issues, get a boot chant.

And don't ignore mastery. It definately isn't our top stat but has an important place for giving your shaman more bang for the buck when people are hurting in a bad way.

[Eijnar]

You might want to update your Bracer enchant suggestion before it becomes embarrasing - The mandatory enchant is +50 spirit on Bracers not 50 haste or 50 crit - The haste enchant is the second best and cheapest, but no where near the spirit enchant.
Secondly, haste is a better stat than crit and with our current low crit chance you cannot "hope" to get a crit, it might work in HC dungeons, but when you step into a 25man raid enviroment you will prioritize haste over crit. I'm currently valueing my stats: int > spirit > haste >> crit >> mastery - Mastery isn't a useless talent, but unless you just want to top meters at Chimeron it isn't worth it compared to what your other stats gives.
And I disagree with Thela; Nature's Swiftness is a must have talent and if the people in your grp. spreads way to much --> Ask them to stand closer to the place where you put your totems. Speed issue? If you haven't specced into 2/2 Ancestral Swiftness you are in my world a moron it is such an amazing talent.