Resto Talent Discussion pre-Naxx

No 25 Man raid this weekend for me but anyway: I’ll be back to raiding pretty soon, even if it’s only the 10 man version of Naxx. Good times, and a good time to briefly look at the resto tree and its talents and the way I’m probably going to spec comes raiding day. I would also like to point out that, as we all know, everyone has a different healing style. In addition to that: 10 man raiding and 25 main raiding do not require the same healing patterns. In 25 man raiding there’s most of the time raidhealers and paladins healers keeping the tanks up whereas in 10 man raiding you’ll often have to do both and fewer chainheal spamming might be required.

Having open a talent calculator in another window might help reading the following wall of text.

• Tier 1: The choice between Improved Healing Wave and Totemic Focus seems like a joke. Totemic Focus was bad before 3.0.2 hit and now with totem duration up to 5 minutes it’s even worse.

• Tier 2: Improved Reincarnation has always been very much a talent of personal choice. Ancestral Healing and Tidal Focus on the other Hand are both excellent Talents. The armor boost of Ancestral Healing is huge and with a good amount of crit very likely to procc. And healing melees via the MT or vice versa is where a shaman can shine (which leads to good uptime of Ancestral Healing). And Mana Conservation helps every healer ofc, so go with Tidal Focus as well.

• Tier 3: I’ve seen many cookie cutter builds that left Healing Focus out of the equation and decided to do so as well for casual sunwell raiding and every 5 man instance in northrend I’ve seen so far. And I didn’t miss it. In 25 man raids there are pallies with concentration aura and in 5 mans the pushback of damage wasn’t big enough to matter for me, especially with the changes in 3.0.2 (When casting a spell: The first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time. All hits after the second will have no effect). Improved Water Shield is nice, and it get’s pretty damn awesome if you have to tank heal with LHW. Even if recasting the Water Shield can become stressful and I’m not yet to fond of this mechanic of mana regeneration. Tidal Force is powerful and should be added to your NS + HW macro (12k insta-HW with crappy gear incoming!). Healing Grace I have left out for a long time and I’ll continue to do so. In the few situations where I pull aggro it was my fault because of casting a heal to early or if AoE mobs aren’t handled properly, in both situations reduced aggro wouldn’t change a thing. If you play a lot of 5 mans you might consider taking the talent anyway.

Comment 12/02/08: After several raids without holy paladin and some heroics I switched healing focus back in. especially now where you still might want to run many heroics where loose mobs are hitting you, take this talent. I will review it later when I’m back to mostly raiding and when we all have outgeared the heroics.

• Tier 4: 10 Points go to…….Tier 4! Restorative Totems is still ugly and bloated but who would want to roll without Mana Tide? And Crit has become a more desirable stat than a few months ago. And if you already get a got amount through talents you won’t have to lock too hard for it on gear.

• Tier 5: Oh poor Healing Way, what have they done to you? I miss you. We spent good times together, you me and HW rank 8, the three of us were like real tank healers. But with with downranking gone I’ll have to let you go too, bye Healing Way. Yeah, just grab NS and go on.

• Tier 6: Purification is still an excellent talent and required for Cleanse Spirit.

• Tier 7: Grab Mana Tide and Cleanse Spirit and move on.

• Tier 8: All Talents are appealing. 2% crit + more earthliving on targets with <35% is ok. I see NO reason not to improve CH. Even when I try hard not to use it it still accounts for around 30% of my healing, and a 20% boos is huge. Nature’s Blessing remains an absolute key talent, especially now as replenishment is going to make us gem for INT.

• Tier 9: Ancestral healing is weak, my combat log parses from sunwell showed a good chunk of healing going to pets. It might get stronger if you do a lot of 5 man instances or have a ton of single target healing assignments. I’d stick with Earthshield with its improvement.

• Tier 10: Oh wow, really deep down in the tree now. And there it is, shiny Tidal waves. I’m not going to talk too much about it. I like it but i don’t love it. I see where it wants shamans to go but I don’t know if that’s my place. For 5 man instances? BRILLIANT! For occasional spot healing? Lovely. For serious 25 man raiding? There Tidal waves still has to proof itself. It could be fantastic. But Chainheal is pure love in 25 man’s nearly always jumping 3-4 times. Tidal waves great for occasional spot healing or a huge hastened HW on the tank. But in if I’m assigned to grouphealing I guess I’ll still be all out chainhealing, and if single target healing I might just be flashing LHW.

Comment on Tidal Waves, added 22.12.08: There is a lot of confusion when it comes to Tidal waves and I’d love to clarify that: The haste proc is only active when Tidal waves is up. The additional healing bonus is passive and thus always active. People who don’t take 5/5 tidal waves miss out on a good chunk of additional healing on LHW/HW.

• Tier 11: Take it please. A great additional healing tool.

Enhancement and Elemental Tree: Elemental has very poor synergy with Restoration right now. Elemental Warding is still there and great, especially when learning new encounters, but the enhancement tree offers superior solutions. I did go with the talents out of enh tree as seen here:

0/14/57 <- The 25 man love build? Updated 12/02/08 for more single target viability. Last point can go where you like it.

I’m open for any suggestions regarding an optimal raid spec or for any fantastic talent I ignored.