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Old 12/18/07, 3:53 AM   #46 (permalink)
Habanero
Von Kaiser
 
Troll Shaman
 
Destromath
Gotta say that I am loving spell haste. At least in ZA, which I assume is similar to the rest of the T5 content, there are periods of significant burst and HPM isn't keeping people alive, HPS is. Mana can be recovered later. Static spell haste on my gear and proc spell haste from a trinket/meta gem and on-demand spell haste from berserking and bloodlust are all simply amazing at getting a very hurt raid up to healthy hp quickly. Spell crit is fairly reliable for me, as well -- I would never drop Tidal Mastery after seeing how much I can crit in practice.

Lastly, I don't think enough has been said about how useful it can to take those "questionable" talents in the Restoration tree. At this point, I firmly believe in a 0/0/61 build where only Improved Reincarnation and Nature's Guidance are skipped. They are both situationally useful, but useful on a similar level to as Ancestral Knowledge, worth about one heal over the course of any boss fight on average. Totemic Focus really helps with the expensive totems like Windfury, Wrath of Air and Fire Elemental, saving easily 500-1000 over the course of a fight. Focused Mind plus some spell haste and spell crit help assure that Shamans have strong silence recovery (similar to priest's shield and pom and druid's swiftmend).

In short, I don't feel that Shamans are a well-rounded healer without a very deep investment in the Restoration tree and a good spread of stats (not neglecting even spell crit). In doing so, and especially combined with the buffs we come with, I find that Shamans join Priests as jacks of all trades, able to handle any healing situation gracefully.
 
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