Nature's Guardian has always worked fine for me... it's a must have for pvp. At high gear levels it will heal you for ~1k (every 5 seconds if you're below 30% hp) which really helps when trying to stay alive. In arenas you will always have an MS on you when being focused so it's not *as* effective, but it's still a good talent. In BG's with Earth Shield and Nature's Guardian you're extremely hard to take down.
I remember one time in a 2v2 arena, after my partner died, I managed to take down 2 frost mages as a resto shaman simply because of this talent.
In PvE, if you have it then you are heavily spec'd Resto, and as such, if you are pulling agro with heals (especially if you have Nature's Grace), then either you are healing too much, at the wrong time, or your tanks really really suck.
It's about the only talent in the resto tree that I wouldn't take for a full resto build, aside from Nature's Guidance.
[edit]One thing I've always wondered, as I didn't take the talent for very long, does it work on _every_ hit you take bellow 30% health, or just the hit that takes you across that 30% mark?
Also, I'd say it may be "Own Thread" worthy, as it's a fairly unique talent, and the mechanics behind it aren't that well understood[/edit]
Last edited by Binkenstein : 05/28/07 at 10:12 PM.
I have Nature's Guardian as deep resto (8/0/53), and with the amount of aoe damage in SSC and beyond, I feel that it's an absolute must-have and would never go without it.
There is absolutely no reason you shouldn't have this talent deep resto. In PvP it will save you against rogues and warriors and other classes I guess. In raiding it will heal you on various things such as Leo's whirlwind dot, morogrim's quake etc. AEs and other crap. The -threat is pretty horrible though, use it for the heal.
Rather than split off to a new thread, I think I might expand on this subject.
I've noticed a few "different" resto builds recently, centring around using Elemental Warding, and to a lesser extent Nature's Guardian. (eg: Xoya's build)
Personally I've been using full totemic focus (cheaper totems), tidal mastery (more crit for Ancestral Healing procs), and focused mind (which help resists those damn silences) over Nature's Guardian & Elemental Warding.
The question is: are there enough situations that you would get to 30% or less HP, or be taking alot of nature/frost/fire damage to make these talents worthwhile?
Trash in TK pre-2.1, definitely. We've only done the trash clear to Void Reaver since 2.1, in TK, but I can count at least one time it saved me from a repair bill (a warlock died on the pull 'cause he failed at banish on the guys that toss saw blades around). In SSC it frequently helps me -- it can help save me from death from a Spore Quake, the whirlwind on Leotheras, getting a late frost-phase tomb on Hydross, being low health when I get tombed on Tidewalker, getting hit by a stray naga on Vashj because our warrior got feared; I'm sure there are more examples, but these are just the ones that come to mind. As a healer, especially if your guild is running healer light, in my opinion it is your responsibility to make sure that you stay alive long enough to ensure that you get the heals you need to keep going.
Edit: it just occurred to me that I only covered Nature's Guardian. To be honest, I've never done any of these fights without Elemental Warding, so I don't now what it's like not having it. I can imagine that it would be a very difficult transition for me to make at this point. Taking less damage myself from environmental effects helps me feel comfortable topping off the raid before I need to top off myself.
Generally I find that if you (and your fellow healers are on to it) you can cover yourself and everyone else on trash fairly easily (although I do tend to get grouped with at least one shadow priest), and in many cases don't take damage (aside from those pita sonic bolt things on SSC trash).
I still think that NG is undepowered for its place in talent tree, either lower cd on proc, or make it 100%. I'm not pvp fan and i find very hard to justify putting 5 points in this talent tbh.
I was in the 'fortunate' position of having one of the best NR gear sets while we were working on Huhu in AQ40, and elemental warding saved my ass quite a few times. I pick it up out of force of habit when I spec resto these days, and it's still helpfull on fights like Aran. I can only imagine nature's guidance would have helped out in much the same way, since it's a free heal in high/constant damage situations.
However, I have to agree with Kirion about NG being a 5 point talent. If I was planning on doing a lot of pvp I would pick it up, but as it stands I think the 5 points would be more useful elsewhere. Specifically, tidal mastery (which I normally skip) and focused mind. If it were 3 points it'd be much more attractive.
Thadec, are you using scrolling combat text? It should show you when NG procs.
I was also considering the utility of NG. I'm not convinced yet, but we haven't started SSC (First down of gruul sunday). I looked at a WWS report to have precides number, and it's not really satisfying... http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=s4jeo6wxx2ots
6 procs in a 3.5 hours run, including Aran. Hem...
(for thoses looking, i let another cham do attumen for the bracers, and i was playing my Spriest on moroes for shackle, so weird stat for a chamy on this fight ^^)
I've never had nature's guardian or elemental warding (running 11/0/50 at the moment, the points in elem are mostly for 'some' farming utility with damage gear, so both tier 1 talents and elemental focus) and so far I've been on four boss kills in SSC and two in The Eye (Al'ar and Void).
I won't deny that I definitely feel they could have made a difference sometimes though but they're far from essential.
I think its one of the best talents a shaman can have for pvp. Combined with earthshield (if it doesn't get dispelled) that 30% marker makes you that much tougher. And it scales very nicely with your increasing hit point pool.
If you can't spare 5 points for it, its still very noticable with 1-3 points in it.
I still think that NG is undepowered for its place in talent tree, either lower cd on proc, or make it 100%. I'm not pvp fan and i find very hard to justify putting 5 points in this talent tbh.
Its primarily a PvP talent, if you don't want to PvP you don't have to spend points in it. Other healing classes have similar PvP survivability talents in their top tier healing trees, and of these I'd have to say natures guardian is one of the best. If you don't want it, I'll gladly trade you Natural Perfection for it.
For the other 2 classes, Paladins get Blessed Life, and Priests get Blessed Resilience. Overall I'd say they are all fairly well balanced with each other, though the druid talent pisses me off that it only works against physical damage. In any case, the only real valid complaint that I can see from the shaman perspective of this is that their survivability talent costs 5 points compared to 3 for the other classes.
I've never thought about speccing into Elemental Warding before, this is the first I've ever heard of it. What points in the Resto tree do you sacrifice to get those 8 points into the Elemental tree?
As it stands I've specced a full 61 points into Resto. It looks to me like Totemic Focus is by far the weakest talent in the tree, and I'd take Nature's Guardian over Totemic Focus any day of the week. Therefore I have 5 points in Nature's Guardian, and I opted to put 3 points into Totemic Focus instead of 3 points into Ancestral Knowledge.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=GVcZZEc0tAeoted is what I have run with for months and it have served me very well in SSC and TK.
Totemic focus is imo a fairly poor talent and the rest of the resto talents I miss out on I miss even less.
Being 0/5/56, I find this talent moderatly usefull in a raid setting and really usefull in a heroic setting where there are often loose adds.
Also, you can't deny that it is really usefull for farming as resto shaman: no need to spend mana to heal yourself, so you can sustain chain pulling a lot longer, and you can put Lightning Shield instead of Earth Shield to increase your dps. You can even kill some elite mobs (even if it will take a long time) by adding Earth Shield.
05/28/07, 10:02 PM
but they're far from essential.
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