I redid the build slightly, viewable here: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZxVcdVMzZVcbtVxo

My other thought was it may be time to give up two handed weapons and give in to the elemental fad.

also viewable here: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hAczVczoZx0cZVcbt0Lo

I'm 0/13/38 at the moment.

I really love Mana Tide, Mana Stream and Healing Stream totems at the moment (and I think the hunters/healers love it as well).

It's remarkably duarable in PvP as well, I can still crit ES/LB/CL for over 1k non-trinketed, it just feels like a nice build.

That said, I did spec stormstrike for BWL the other week, that was fun - it was also an odd run in the early hours of the morning, with Gurg tanking a boss - but still, was very fun.

^^^^this is the real reason I spec Toughness

You may be going about using Healing Way in a slightly off manner then. Look at like this - ANY of your HW ranks will put the buff on them for 15 seconds, and ALL shaman can get the benefit of it. So whoever has Healing Way just starts out by casting 3 rank 1 HWs on the tank to stack the buff on them for the full 18%. Now continue to heal as normal using higher rank HWs (I use rank 6 normally, with +758 healing). After that you just watch the buff and reapply it every 15 seconds with Rank 1 HW, costs you like 25 mana.

I'm a big supporter of Healing Wave over LHW. Guys who spam LHW all the time have no idea what they're doing in my opinion. Time and a plae for both spells of course. For one thing, healing wave is a lot more mana effecient once you start stacking on the +healing. Most guys tell me they may as well spam the LHW because they get the proc from the EF bonus. Well I have never had the 5 piece EF bonus for the mana regen, and never really cared. Any fight in the game I will outlast any other shaman in my guild in mana efficiency and top the effective healing charts at the same time.

I respecced to 24/27 over lunch, with healing way.
Seen here:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZxVcdVMzZxcbtMeo

same basic setup as before patch with more utility in there.

Honestly, I wish there was a way to fit Tidal Focus in there. I'm not particularly high on Healing Focus. Speaking as a priest, I went without the equivalent talent (2 points for 70%, tier 1) and never really felt it I was missing out*. I'd say that given Nature's Swiftness, I'd be even more inclined to do without.

Also, I'm not as high on parry as some. What's the percentage to parry for Shaman assuming DM Blues (I assume strength modifies it).

*I've since pcked it up on a respec, but honestly would be hard pressed to spend 5 points in it.

Why did you go for 2/5 Anticipation instead of one of the tier two talents, or even 2/5 in blocking? Guardian totems and imp ghost wolf both look attractive to me as a non-shaman, so I'm curious as to why you chose 2% dodge over them.

Well I assume since he does some tanking he wants the dodge over the other 2. And he wanted to put the minimal in to get 5 in toughness. Seems his play style invites taking hits, so if so then build your talents around it. Not sure how useful ghost wolf really is for 60s anyway.

Guardian Totems is really really bad because the underlying skills are pretty bad. Stoneskin and Windwall never get used. Stoneskin is -30 damage before mitigation. This talent would make it -36. When your MT is getting hit for 1500 after 2/3 mitigation is applied, you can see how silly that is. Windwall has no real applications that I've seen. I drop it in the workshop in BRD for all those little ranged guys. That's about it. Grounding Totem is good, but usually when it absorbs what it's going to absorb, it dies in the process. Reducing the refresh time on it isn't helpful in that light. Also Grounding Totem is increasingly useless in raiding. Every time something gets absorbed by it, it gets changed to not be.

Imp Ghost Wolf is good for leveling and getting away from NPCs instead of dying to them when a fight doesn't go your way. I never really use Ghost Wolf unless I'm running a flag, and I don't spec for PvP. Imp Lightning Shield is where I'd put the two points if I had to, but again, from a raid perspective, an extra few dozen damage when something procs my lightning shield isn't a major concern.

That leaves 2% dodge, which complements toughness. With my spec and gear, and without Subtlety, if there is an untanked mob going after healers, it will ususally be going after me. And that's intended. I have 7k'ish armor buffed, and will have 8k when I'm done with Naxx. Every bit of physical mitigation keeps me alive in those situations and lets me serve a useful function, absorbing damage that would kill priests/druids until a tank can get the mob under control. I also use Earth Shock a lot to rein in loose mobs that need to be tanked, and when my routine activities include things like Earth Shocking Noth, I like every bit of mitigation I can get. :)

So why did you get Thundering Strikes instead of Shield Specialization? Thundering Strikes helps more?

lol I didn't expect to see Berg and Bullbrain here

Here I am. The name is Shaman, Resto Shaman:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZbZEfxtAeqo

Also known as "the chain heal guy"
http://ctprofiles.net/987851
Well, someday

So when you pull Noth to you with Earthshock, how often do you die? What's your raiding gear like?

Because Shield Spec sucks -- shamans have a low block value and low block %, which make a poor base upon which to build.

Edit -- I don't die too often. Obviously I would if he weren't pulled off me and I got no other healing, but I can live for long enough to make it a worthwhile course of action at certain junctures. My current set is: http://ctprofiles.net/32681

I raid a lot nowadays, I don't have Healing Way, I don't have Mana Tide. Yet I don't feel useless in raids at all.

In raid groups we rarely had more than one shaman per group, and not all of them have Mana Tide either. Whether they have Mana Tide or not, Healing Way or not, it allowed us to have greater flexibility in raid.

I don't get how people are not "feeling" Healing Way. I love taking advantage of Healing Way from other shamans on a tank. It made a huge difference, even for myself who only has 22 points in Restoration.

As for Mana Tide, I tried it out on test and I thought "Well, I guess it's okay, if not better than before." but I didn't like having to go beyond 21 Restoration just to get it. Just a preference I guess.

I often get put into melee groups or hunter groups so they can take DPS boost from my Enhancing Totems and Improved Weapon Totems. I really like doing that. Since the totems are so goshdarn cheap to cast, I don't mind relocating those if we have to, but that usually happens during trash pulls. It's very rare to move totems around in boss encounters.

Current shaman's talents does not feel like "cookiecutter" anymore. It is great having more diversity in our talents.

well for one thing it's annoying as hell just to try fitting it in, it just pisses me off on faerlina. I'm spot healin everyone, lhw, lhw, lhw, drop totem, drop totem, decurse, decurse, lhw, lhw, where the hell do you have time to use 1k healing waves consistently on a target if you're not healing an offtank? actually, i really hate using 1k 2.5s heal that needs to stack 3 times on a single target, anywhere

That's the main reason I'm not feelin' it, it's just so impractical. Do you guys throw lots of Rank 5 Healing Waves in Faerlina? How have you guys tried making exceptional use of Healing Way besides Razuvious?

btw, what's your gear set-up grim?

Okay let me set up a CTProfile then.

http://ctprofiles.net/2040683

Edit: It's all what I have on me currently (I excluded resist gear and the like), and I am working on catching up and looting more stuff along the way. However, I performed well enough in Naxxramas that I don't feel useless at all. Just need better gear soon!

Editx2: Oh, that spellpower on Fang, I looted it before they changed Fang to have dam/healing on it. I guess I'm too lazy to run Scarlet Strath to grab some orbs for Healing enchant.

you use that gear while healing in naxx? is that recent?

If he is healing, a set like that will be fine. While not ideal, the upgrades between sets (Ef -> Ts -> Sc) is minimal, if any at all. I still use Ef shoulders and bp when healing, since their is no easy-to-get alternative (cant get wild growth! :().

I've actually been thinking about this talent more. Am I wrong in assuming that if you block an enemies attack it can't crit you? If so, I think that makes Shield Spec. nearly decent.

Tell that to the 450DPS I held on Noth the other day for a full blink cycle. Shaman DPS in any form is based on the gear you supplement your spec with. Being a nut for enhancement I'll always be the first one to start eyeing up the most 'hybrid' of the hybrid and balancing sets around getting that extra DPS while maintaing a suitable level of healing for a given fight.

The only fights where mana tide would have saved my ass would've been learning Noth and presumably Patchwork (I missed all the test server attempts : /). Shaman healing is very stylistic and especially in EJ is dependent on what role you want for yourself. I myself am 0/30/21 at the moment with a spec that qualifies me as a hunter shaman through and through. (Now if I can just get them to stop DPSing from opposite sides of the room...) Not forcing specs is arguably one of the best points about EJ raiding as there's always a niche you can sneak into and perform well.

As a final point, looking at specs and gear setups only does so much when considering how far we've advanced, sure gear gives an edge, but it really comes down to the fact that pound for pound and mana for mana our shaman are the hands down best on the server if not the best out there. There is never a time when I've doubted any of the other shaman in EJ to step up and get the job done, because I know all of them come to play.

only 450 dps?

is that like going all out with shocks too? or only melee? and you're not using stormstrike right? what's your 2-hander

and i'm really curious how many shamans you guys actually have

Pretty cool that you're enhance. The more bosses I fight, the more I'm really starting to see a sort of niche being carved out in Naxx for an Enh Shaman or 2 in a raid.
Like the way it's also been more Shadow Priest friendly. Try that Nightfall yet?

Link a gear profile, I'd love to see your enhance gear.
I'm still working on my DPS gear, 30/21 isn't bad at all. I went 24/27 to try out healing way.

On a side note, anyone else having problems seeing ancestral healing and healing way both up on the target if you have both talents? I had this issue last night where i could only see one of them for the fight, and it seemed to switch between them occasionally.

I routinely put up ancestral and healing way with rank 1 hw's on the tank before the pull. Only thing I could think of is that his bufflist was too long and a totem pulsed, knocked it off and then ran out of range. We had HoT's and healing procs push off flasks before :highfive:

On another note: http://ctprofiles.net/2045594

All you do with a higher block rate is push hits off the combat result table (which effectively means that your blocked damage amount is all the mitigation you get from it). The combat system does not independently check a block/dodge/parry against crit/crush/hit. They simplify it by having all results in one table.

Warriors are an exception because they can cover the entire combat table with miss, block, dodge, and parry through the use of shieldblock. The order of operations for attacks against you is miss > parry/dodge > block > crit > crush > hit. If Block's slice of the outcome increases, it pushes hit off first. It seems very unlikely that you can push all the hits off the table and start taking up the crush result (much less crits) with blocks as a shaman.