Hello,

First of all let me say I'm in no way an expert or veteran Shaman yet - I've rerolled Alliance Shaman in the Burning Crusade due to the need of Shamans on alliance side and ofcourse, I really liked the class mechanics.

After raiding with it for a while (SSC and the likes) I've encountered some difficulties and/or questions, which hopefully can be answered here.

My first concern would be how I function in raids - I'm usually the only Shaman in our raids due to not having much Shamans in the guild. This means our options of me boosting the raids viability is quite limited. I've found myself to be the biggest boost in the mage/healer group, but ofcourse I can stand my own in the melee group due to excessive melee buffage.
Me being the only Shaman ofcourse brings a lot of pain to our raids - what group benefits from me the most? And what buffs do I give them?

The choice if I'm in the caster/healer-kind of group is obvious. WoA + Mana Spring/Mana Tide Totem if necessary. Searing totem if I feel like it, for some extra DPS on the bossmob. That's not the issue.
The problems arise when I get put into a melee group. Usually we have no warrior to buff Battle Shout, so our melee group would concist of:

Rogue
Rogue
Rogue
Shaman
Hunter (TSA)

Half of the rogues prefer Windfury, whilst the other half go absolutely mental when I drop WF. The hunter also ofcourse doesn't benefit from WF. My question is, what totem-combo would be best?
I drop SoA for attackpower ofcourse, mana spring for myself in mana intensive fights, but healing stream on others to top up the group. The issue is the Air Totem - Which one is most definitely the biggest DPS boost to this kind of group? Does the added white damage from Windfury outDPS the added attack power and crit from GoA to all 4 of them? Or does giving Windfury to 3 rogues > giving GoA to 3 rogues and 1 hunter?
To start off, I thought WF would definitely win, but now I'm not quite sure. GoA allows the rogues to use poisons, which is additional DPS and should ofcourse be calculated into all of this. Unfortunatly I have no idea to start this kind of mathematic calculations and I would have no idea what kinds of this I actually have to calculate lol. What would the more veteran Shamans do in this kind of situation?

Although I prefer being in the caster/healer group, due to the Shadowpriest regen in those groups, what would the biggest utility for me be? Melee buffage or Caster/Healer buffage? I ofcourse want to boost our raid's potential to the maximum and my personal preferences shouldn't count. I can chug down mana potions and other kinds of consumables to keep up with the mana useage.

This brings me to the next issue - I have noticed my mana efficiency isn't really the best out there, although my gear is pretty good. This probably has to do with my way of healing, since most Shamans I have seen usually fair pretty well mana-wise.
It all depends on fight to fight, but I tend to have 4 main spells in raids - CH 3 & 7, LHW 7 and HW 12. On most fights however, I usually resort to using LHW 7 to top up people - I am quite aware this is a huge mana waste, but I rarely see any other use of my own spells. Chain Heal ofcourse is the primary spell for me on fights such as Doomwalker or Kazzak, where there is a huge damage income to the raid. But on fights such as Gruul and Magtheridon - even on Hydross - I tend to just spam my heart out with LHW 7. This reflects in my mana useage, but maybe it's because of our other healers' strategies, but I just simply cannot justify using HW 12 to patch the raid. The overheal would be immense and that's not really mana efficient either. Am I looking to this in the wrong perspective, or? Should I just completely change my healing strategy and/or healing ranks? Downranking seems pretty useless to me, due to the change that was pushed live to prevent downranking heals.
To summarize, I'd love to hear how other shamans heal during raids - what their main spells are and what duties they are put on most of the time. Basicly, what kind of healingstrategy fits the Shaman best? Before TBC I had played a Druid & Priest, which are two totally different healers and it's hard to bring that experience to use on my Shaman.

Last issue would be, gear choice. My initial intentions were to go for a mp5 setup, since spirit is basicly useless to a Shaman. However, I ended up with having more +heal than I thought I would have and less mp5 than I assumed I would have.
Currently I'm sitting at 1552 +healing and 130 mp5. I could change some of my items I suppose, but I quite like it atm. My question to you is, is this kind of gearbalance a good idea? Or should I definitely get more mp5? I'm a bit looking at the moment, testing and trying to optimize my raidperformance and I'm sure help from here would surely increase it by a lot. Also is my talent choice optimal? I went for all that could possible increase my healing power and efficiency in the resto tree and then had 5 points to spare, so I took Ancestral Knowledge for some additional mana - I realise it's barely anything and probably not worth it, but it seemed more useful than the tier 1 Elemental talents and I didn't really see the use in maxing out Totemic Focus and especially not in taking Nature's Guardian for raidhealing.

A profile can be found here:
http://armory.wow-europe.com/#charac...+Peak&n=Ashiya.


Ashiya

I definitely will, I thought of doing that first, but didn't really want to derail the topic. Feel free to comment on it here though, I'd love to hear what other Shamans think of this issue.

I'm also new to shammy, i'm playing elemental, i've tried resto a few times so far and don't like it. Earth shield is great, Chain heal is godly but having played a holy disc priest for over 100 days played before TBC, healing as a shammy feals a bit gimp, my 600ms ping makes healing wave a good 3 second cast. I go OOM really fast compared to what my mass spirit priest used to do. I out dps 95% of the guild as elemental and love it.

As for Windfury vs GoA, ive never really had the choice as 1/2 the guild now plays feral druids so GoA is a no brainer there, the added Dodge crit and AP effecting everything is better than +20% white damage for rogues imo. if your group was 3 combat rogues and a warrior WF would probably be the go.

Buffing casters Vs buffing melle, probably depends on the fight and how much mana your healers need, In general I think as resto your probably best in the caster group, +101 Damage, Mana tide/spring, Heroism has the most effect on casters and mana back from a shadow priest is always awsome. Healer group doesn't really need heroism, but if they are desprate for mana, and you arn't using shadow priest + paly unlimited mana BS, this is where your mana tide will be needed.

As Gurg put it when Blizz wanted to nerf WF Totem, GoA+Poisons vs WF is kind of a wash for Rogues except at extremely high gear levels. But Battleshout does more for Rogues then either combination and WF is the absolute biggest boost a Warrior can get because of the increased rage equals more DPS, equals more rage, etc. As long as Rogues absolutely have to be in the group with a warrior because BS is such a huge buff, they'll be getting WF. Without a warrior in the group GoA+Poisons is probably slightly better for raid DPS.

Searing should always be down if it can hit the boss and won't interfere with a script/CC or anything by the way. Searing, since it got changed, is awesome damage/mana and it is the only DoT in the game that doesn't take up a debuff slot. Worth refreshing.

I can't get the Armory to load your profile, so I'm just going to post what I think is the best Resto talent spec.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GVcZZEc0tAeoted

Assuming you have Tide unless the raid leader swaps you around when the cooldown is up to caster groups, it'd be easier to just have you in a caster/healer group the whole time though it is fight dependant. Talented HW+Healing Way and I think it is +1,200 healing your HW actually has a greater hp/sec then Priests (at a similar level of +heal, the math is oddly enough in either the Druid or the Paladin thread...) so if your guild/raid isn't using you as a tank healer they probably should be. That and CH (ES if you specced it) are your biggest strengths as a healer. Putting you in a situation where you feel like using LHW is the best spell available is a waste. Not to menion with Tidal Mastery you have a higher crit rate so it is far easier for you to keep up Ancestral Healing then it is for a Priest to keep up Inspiration. +25% armor is a lot of mitigation.

Mentioned in the first sentence of the previous paragraph, but Shaman get swapped mid-fight a LOT depending on what the raid needs. Horde-side we've been doing this for years, your RL needs to be educated about your abilities so he can switch you on the fly when and as needed.

I just posted this in another thread, so I'm going to quote myself. I was making a direct comparison there but Totemic Focus is probably the worst talent in the entire Resto tree. At max rank it is maybe, at most, 30 mp/5 for five talent points. Even Nature's Guidance is better, at least when you suddenly need to Eartch Shock the mob because the Rogue who was kicking it got cleaved your odds go up dramatically. I don't know anything about the usefulness of Focused Mind so I'll stay quiet. I like Nature's Guardian, mostly because 10% of all your threat can be quite a lot and in a lot of cases it frees you from ever having to heal yourself, which is good because healing yourself is distracting compared to healing the tank. Elemental Warding+Convection or Concussion is better then Ancestral Knowledge, 500 mana is hardly anything. Basically you can't spend all your points in Resto, there aren't enough good talents. The lower tiers of enhance are bad, the lowest tier of elemental has a couple good talents. That is how I see it anyway.

Ummm... ask the MT to make you raid leader while fighting so you can switch yourself? There really ought to be a rank the RL can promote people to so they can switch groups...

Yes it is worth it to stack Healing Way up with Rank1s and keep it refreshed (assuming it actually has a chance of dropping, 15sec without a heal landing on tank seems unlikely). Bonus: More uptime on Ancestral Healing.

The main spells I use is Rank 8 HW 7 LHW and Rank 5 chain heal. Rank 10 and 12 HW is reachable via Shift keys, this seems to have been the best setup for me personally and I have Rank 9 HW stashed in case I have to swap spells (usually use 9 on heroics and scale up as needed). Rank 8 HW and 7 LHW are the same cost so it helps me pace my mana usage as I see fit, on Kazzak I mainly chain heal and use LHW but most of other fights im switching ranks and spells as needed.

Well, I took Focused Mind initially for Heroic healing - getting kicked in a heroic is a guaranteed wipe and ofcourse to a lesser extent for Gruul, resisting the Reverberation back in the days or a hard Gruul could really make the difference. Maybe now the talent is a bit useless, since I hardly do any Heroics anymore and well, Gruul... No comment.

I would really love to keep Improved Reincarnation, just because of the sole fact I'm the only Shaman and having a shorter cooldown is really useful, not to mention I actually res with quite some health and mana, should I have to use it in combat.

I could ofcourse do something like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hxcZZEf0tAeotId

But it feels not maxing out Nature's Guardian is a bit stupid if I am to invest any points in it.

And while we're discussing - any suggestions for a mod to track my Healing Way status? I'd love have a bar showing how long left on it.

I tried Chronometer, but didn't really like it. I've picked up NECB now, after a suggestion on the UI forums, but I've encountered an issue with it, but let's not derail, if you want to help me with fixing it however, go here: http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.p...031#post321031

Now, back on topic. I've been looking into specs a little and I've come up with this and I quite like it. I get to keep Improved Reincarnation, by sacrificing 2 points in Tidal Mastery. 2% crit is nice ofcourse, but I doubt I'll miss it too much.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GxcZZEf0tAIoted

Your raid leader can also swap you into the healer group to use Mana Tide when needed, you dont need to be wasted in that group the whole time when you could be boosting DPS.

I can not understand, why you are willing to spend to 8 talent points for -10% damage to fire/frost/nature. I'm missing -% damage to arcance and shadow. On how many encounter you can remember off it's really needed? I really prefer 'focused mind' over it, it can really helps you in 5 man heroic and more demanding instances.
Improved Ankh is quite nice, a free soulstone/combat res. on every 2nd to 3rd boss attempt.

Using focused mind, the [Talisman of the Breaker] and a paladin with improved concentration aura can be really annoying for every pvp opponent, if you like pvp.

That's why i pick the following talents.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GZZEfhtAested

Actually, 61pts in Resto if you didn't get any in Totemic Focus wouldn't be a bad build all around. I can't get over my dislike of Totemic Focus, 5pts for at best 30 mp/5 is just ridiculous. With four normal totems down only refreshing them when neccesary it is 1/3-1/2 of that.