Originally Posted by PsyBomb

I was also working under the assumption that the Ancestral Healer would select your main target if he was the one still needing help.

I think, regardless of the viability of a pure Healing Wave build, most Resto shamans are going to be picking up numerous Elemental pieces to ramp up their crit for short fights. Anyone have a rough estimate of what a t4-5 Elemental shaman is looking at for their crit chance?

Think about it this way. How many bosses (or, heck, raid mobs in general), off the top of your head, deal significant amounts of physical damage to non-tanking melee. Gruul, Tidewalker, and Void Reaver come forcefully to mind, and I believe that Naj'entus needles strike for physical (splash Frost, but STRIKE physical). Any boss with a whirlwind, as well, or any that cleave with difficult positioning/displacement (nightbane fear-cleave, anyone?). Dumping Chain Heals into melee with a particularly high crit value is a very good way to preserve the lives of those who can't DPS from outside of harm's way, simply by upgrading them by an effective armor class with moderately high frequency.

I guess what this rant is saying is that, given these trees, we'll be set to customize our healing role by gear choice, fight by fight. Tons of raid-wide damage? Gear up on Spellpower and MP5 and fire Chains where they'll be needed. Tank damage more spiky than Blade's Edge? Get some crit onto your gear, and use Healing Wave, Spirit Link, and Earthshield in combination with Ancestral Fortitude to soften it up considerably and let the other healers take care of topping them off. Brutal short-duration DPS race? Forego MP5-laden resto gear and start critting like you MEAN it. The gear changes are all that will let us do this, there is no good way to do so at the moment (other than gemming, but that can only go so far.