Patch 3.0.8 live

Well well. After many many rather personal posts I’ll try to get back on the resto shaman track.

For me nothing much exciting happened in the last few days. I’m not raiding. I’m doing some heroics which at my state of gear are just very easy. And I’m at 4pcT7.5, that’s just more or less where I want to be before 3.1 goes live with only few pieces of gear still high on my shopping list. And 3.0.8 didn’t bring any ground-breaking news either. Actually it took me nearly two days to finally fill my talent tree again. I’ll pick out some changes anyways:

Professions:

When I first heard that 3.0.8 will bring changes to enchanting and make many enchants cheaper I stopped getting any new pricey enchants and waited for the patch. Weapon – Mighty Spellpower, Cloak – Greater Speed or Bracers – Sup. Spellpower are just some examples of enchants you’ll get much cheaper now. And if you enchanted all your stuff some days before 3.0.8, well then that’s a good point to start reading patch notes from time to time.

Items:

Relic of Ulduar can now be sold in the AH or turned in at Sons of Hodir for 250 rep. Make money or please please get your rep up with Sons of Hodir to exalted. Every serious raiding guild should have the epic shoulder enchant as requirement for their members at some point. Another money source can be selling rare gems that can be bought for 10 Emblem of Heroism, if you’re not like me spending all your Emblem on second equipment gear. Not at all shaman related but very decent for my prot warrior are the changes to the Tempered Titansteel Helm which gets Meta and blue socket.

Shaman Love:

• Healing Way: Now only one application is required to reach full benefit. No longer stacks. I’m still not speccing into it, even if all talent points were refunded and time for some experiments would be right. My problem is: LHW has just the perfect size and speed for a tank healing spell and I got very fond of it. The numbers I’ve seen on EJ point in the direction though that HW with healing way is superior in terms of HPM and HPS to glyphed LHW. HW advantages are: non-ES dependent, profits from 4pcT7 bonus. I just don’t see the fights yet that would support HW spamming without huge overheal. If I see the the tanks health drop I’d much rather cast LHW to get the health up asap. HW for me is still tied to NS or to boss fights with huge predictable damage incoming where I can precast (Malygos, Patchwerk). Of course this might change with Ulduar fight, more incoming damage and larger tank health pools.
• Improved Water Shield: Lesser Healing Wave now has a reduced chance to trigger this talent. LHW consumes WS orbs with 60% chance at critical heals. If I tank heal I guess I’ll stick to LHW anyway but I’ll try to fit in HW as much as possible.
• Magma Totem: The damage and scaling has been increased and no longer generates threat. I drop Magma at nearly every trash pack. It’s a good and cheap contribution to overall damage.

For overall talent build I’m still very undecided on some talents:

Healing Focus: I’ve seen many shamans leaving it out of their builds, arguing that paladin aura is more than enough and that new spell pushback mechanism makes this talent even worse. I still feel that in some encounters like Sarth 3D, some heroics I still profit from every split second where I can cast, but then I haven’t specced out of it since my first days at 80.

Ancestral Awakening: Great talents in heroics. Decent talent in 10 mans. Very weak talent in 25 man raiding. Still in my build as I just think the mechanics are fun and it does a good job the less you spam chainheal.

Ancestral Healing: I’ve seen shamans drop this out of their builds. The problem I always had with this talent is how hard to calculate the benefit you’ll get is. It won’t show up in WWS. It of course doesn’t stack with Inspiration. And it only helps if it proccs on a tank. I still keep this talent because raid buffed crit of a resto shaman is much higher than in BC and because spamming chainheal on the MT and having it jump to the melees is one of the situations where a shaman really shines.

Elemental Weapons: It’s a static buff of +45 bonus healing. The more bonus healing you get the weaker this talent gets. I’m have one point in this talent which doesn’t really make sense, but after all my healing still benefits from every little bit of bonus healing. Might switch this last point back to shamanistic focus for additional shocking fun.

I know you had to respecc, please do link to your spec/armory, I’m very curious how you spent your points after some months of trying out some of the new talents.