Daidalos

IF you have 5 points in rest totems. otherwise its 4.8

 

Humongus

I found this comment surprising. First off, the 10% damage reduction for 3 schools of damage (fire, frost, nature) doesn't seem worth having to also spend 5 talents in either more efficient spell dps or 5% more spell damage -neither of which make us better healers. The damage reduction has absolutely no benefit in PVE and PVP encounters that involve physical, shadow, holy or arcane damage.

Second, Mana Tide returns mana based on a % of your total mana pool, so you aren't just getting an extra 500 mana, you are getting an additional % every time you drop it. When things go wrong, this extra bit can make a difference.

I have personally found that the extra mana pool (I have 12,000+ raid buffed) is worth it, allows me to have 3 more 'optional' talents in restoration (such as the reduced silence duration mechanic, great for pvp/arena), and is in no way just for people "just starting out."

 

• Binkenstein

The average resto shaman has 10k mana.
5 talent points = 500 more mana.
With mana tide, that means an extra 120 mana every 5 minutes, or 2mp5.

The only question then is what talent to drop from Resto to get 8 in Elemental? Generally it comes down to the silence reduction talent, as there are limited silence fights, and the reduction is minimal at best, even after it was buffed.

As for Frost/Fire/Nature damage, lets list the SSC/TK bosses that use those.
Hydros, Lurker, Leo (demon phase), Tidewalker, Fathom-lord (totem), Vashj, Al'ar, Kael.
Not to mention the nature/frost/fire damage used by many of the trash spellcasters.

 

• giansm

There's also a significant frost/fire/nature damage component (as in, enough damage that it sometimes kills people) on Naj'entus, Teron Gorefiend, the Illidari Council, Illidan, Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Azgalor, and Archimonde. That's more than half of all boss encounters at the T6 level.

 

Humongus

Right...

Damage Taken report from WWS Stats on Kael'thas / Tempest Keep

Arcane 103 746
Frost 74 071
Normal 55 585
Fire 23 066
Holy 6 820
Shadow 3 500
Physical 2 220


1. Total Frost/Fire/Nature damage taken: 97,137
2. Multply * 0.10 = 9,714
3. The arcane damage was from 28 direct hits, the fire damage was damage over time (22 dot events). Total hits = 50.
4. 9,714/50=194.28 damage per hit that would have been mitigated.

Mana tide ticks for the same period of time:

Mana Tide Totem (Mana) 8,446 # of ticks: 12 average tick: 703 max tick: 714. I evidently had a mana pool of 11,716 fully buffed.

9.7k damage spread out over ~15 minutes in 195 dmg increments is negligible. Don't get me wrong, the elemental damage reduction talents would OWN in Molten Core .

There is nothing wrong with 8/0/53. My position is that 0/5/56 is a wonderful "end game" raiding spec.

 

• Binkenstein

Yeah, I was going to go through those too, but I was going on lunch when writing that post :p

All in all, I think the better PvE raiding build of the two is the 8/0/53 build.

 

Duscha

sry, but u're wrong: best specc is 0/0/61

500 base mana are totally wasted talent points and even improved ankh grants your more advantages in raiding

 

darkhorse

How is he "Wrong". It is an opinion and that is it. There is validity in all different specs. Personally I run with 8/0/53 as do MANY of the other shamans that frequent these boards.

And just because you might think 0/0/61 is the best doesn't mean it is.

 

Shinwei

I also have to throw in my support for the 8/0/53 spec. I really don't miss any of the talents I had to drop in the Resto and Enhancement Trees to spec as such, and the utility of having a greater chance of surviving is just too hard to beat.

People may argue that they want 500 more mana from Ancestral Knowledge. That's fine. But I don't even come close to running out of mana on any fight in Hyjal, and never have even before I started picking up T6 level gear. Come to think of it, so far there are only two fights where I can sometimes come "close" to running out of mana in Black Temple - Gurtogg Bloodboil and the Illidari Council (haven't downed Illidan yet so I don't know about him). Would Ancestral Knowledge help me out during those two fights? Maybe - but I sure as hell survive a lot easier on Illidari Council with Elemental Warding, which leaves Gurtogg Bloodboil as the only fight where Ancestral Knowledge is superior to Elemental Warding. Even then, is it worth it? I think not.

 

◊ Zoroaster

I prefer the 8/0/53 spec as well. I know reducing the damage taken on Najentus/Council/Illidan has saved my ass a good number of times. With healers having so much more +dmg then pre-2.3 having a buff to your lightning bolts is nice too, either for goofing around during raids or during fights like Leo/RoS where you really need to dps.

 

Melchior

How do you figure mitigating almost 10k damage through that fight is worth less than the 585-ish mana bonus from Ancestral Knowledge? Did nobody spend mana healing the additional damage you took?

 

Duscha

After all it's a decision between 8 talent points for 10% less elemental damage versus Improved Reincarnation. In my experiene improved ankh is a way better. As usual for shamans in raids our hitpoints pool is big enough to get the heal. Mostly it's not a problem to get healed generally, it's just the problem of beeing healed fast enough.
But i must agree with you: Elemental Warding is supirior than Ancestral Knowledge.

 

wilfan

Personally, I hate Improved Reincarnation with passion. It's one of those "hedge the loss" talents, similar to Spirit of Redemption. If you die as a healer in PvE, it should only be because something went wrong raid-wide (say an uncontrolled mob or no tank in melee range on some bosses), so a rez won't help you as you'll die again in a few seconds. If it would help, it is usually completely your fault that you died (didn't move out of that flamestrike, pulled aggro like a noob on transition...). As for wipe recovery - that's what soulstones and Divine Intervention is for.

 

doul

I love the talent. I agree that under "normal" circumstances I shouldn't die in PvE though. But it happens sometimes, be it due to me positioning a bit stupid and taking a cleave, being too slow with moving from flamestrike (or even getting a bad strike of luck at Council, which actually does happen sometimes), healing a sec too early and getting parts of a Hyjal wave on me or whatever. I agree that reincarnating won't always help though, but if you use it with some thought it can very well save a wipe.
There's also some encounters where parts of the raid will die, no matter skills. Teron and Azgalor would be the examples from BT/MH.

These examples are, or should be for a raid that's just farming these days, spread enough to not warrant the need for reduced cooldown on Reincarnation. The real reason to put two points in the Improved Reincarnation talent is that it doubles the amount of hp/mana you recieve when getting up. 40% instead of 20% is quite a huge difference in my eyes.

And for the times when you're progressing rather than farming the occasional "random" deaths will happen more often, bringing more occasions to reincarnate.

 

Humongus

It comes down to overhealing. The answer to your question is - No. Nobody healed me specifically because of the extra damage I took by not having elemental warding. They healed me (or I topped myself off) because I took damage in the first place - something elemental warding does not prevent (i.e., it's not a 10% resist fire/frost/nature school). My hypothesis is that the mitigated damage (less than 200 per occurance for the Kael'thas fight) would just end up as overhealing. The reason to have elemental warding in my opinion is for the 10% damage reduction on really big hits. I don't take a lot of those - if I do, I'm typically in the wrong place or screwing up.

I may use WWS to keep track of the number of hits that killed me that I would have survived with 3/3 elemental warding just to have real data on it.

Not to be argumentative, but my main point here is that 0/5/56 is a fine end game raiding spec, not that 8/0/53 is inferior. Just because a big group of people do something ("many people that come to this board use XYZ") doesn't make it inherently valid or best practice. I like studying things carefully and making my own decisions on what works for me. I have yet to see anyone post a convincing argument that there is a "best" spec. I just found the author's post about 0/5/56 0/0/61 being a good for "just starting out" condescending and without valid argument.

By the way, this is a great guide - thanks for taking the time to write it.

 

Humongus

I would love to see actual data on how many times it saved your ass. Not because I don't believe you, but because I am curious.

Your point about +dmg is a great reason to spec 8/0/53.

 

Shinwei

At this point I don't think I will drop improved Reincarnation for *anything*. I spec 8/0/53 for Elemental Warding, but instead of dropping Improved Reincarnation, I instead chose to take 2 points out of Tidal Mastery, and there hasn't been a single time I've really missed having that 2% spell crit.

To me, Improved Reincarnation is not just about getting myself back up if something went horribly wrong - although I'm sure I don't need to explain the benefits of that. The other use of having Improved Reincarnation is the extra 20% health and mana I get back when I pop my ankh. There are times during boss encounters when I do, for one reason or another, run out of mana. When this happens, I can either wait for my potion cooldown to be up, or if someone crucial in the raid really needs heals, I can go get myself killed by AOE and pop back up at 40% health and mana.

For 2 points in improved reincarnation, I have essentially boosted my maximum mana by 20%. Compare that to the piddly 5% you get for 5 points in Ancestral Knowledge, and really it's a no-brainer.

 

Shinwei

I believe the easiest to talk about example of Elemental Warding in action is the damage the raid takes from High Warlord Naj'entus's Tidal Burst, which hits the entire raid for 8500 points of Frost damage. Since I am specced for Elemental Warding, I only take 7650 points of damage.

WWS

Sure, I can LHW myself right before the explosion, but this costs me 440 mana plus 1.5 seconds that I could be spending topping someone else off. Seeing as High Warlord Naj'entus tends to use Tidal Explosion multiple times during his encounter, if I have to use LHW to heal myself more than once throughout the fight, I've already spent more than the 500 mana I would have gained from Ancestral Knowledge.

 

Skyhoof

In many fights, your goal is to stay alive. And if everyone in the raid can do that, you win. I switched to the 8-0-53 spec several weeks ago from the 0/5/56 spec. Both have advantages and disadvantages. I would say that until you have downed a few bosses in SSC and TK, you are probably better off with 0/5/56. Mana is more of an issue at that level. However, as the elemental damage mounts in the later parts of SSC and TK and you start getting really hit in Hyjal and BT, 8-0-53 becomes quite the life saver. It is second only to Nature’s Guardian.

I’m intrigued by the arguments so many shaman make for Improved Reincarnation. I might play around with that talent. However, how do you handle the loss of raid buffs when you pop? For me, that’s the hardest part of popping during a fight and continuing to heal. I usually chug a mana pot and drop Mana Tide but without full raid buffs, I seem to go OOM pretty fast.

I currently don’t have any points in Totemic Focus (cheaper totems). So, I would have to take 2 points out of Tidal Mastery (more crit). I’ll give it a try for a few weeks and see if the Improved Reincarnation is worth it. I do think it’s an excellent talent to take for healing heroics. If you are the only healing class, a well timed pop can save you from a wipe. Or allow you to beat the timer in ZA. I so want that bear mount. It was made for Taurens.

On a separate note, I haven’t seen Murderbot update this guide or the one on the Wow forum in quite some time. I would really like some more hard math added to the Resto shaman guide. His post is a great start and I would like to see it built upon and improved. Is it worth starting a new thread? Cross our fingers that he comes back?

 

• Erongg

It's quick and easy to whisper a paladin for a 5 minute Wisdom, which is really your most important buff unless you require extra HP or some sort of resist (in which case you can whisper for those too). You can function quite well without full buffs in most situations. Certainly it's much better to have you alive and healing than to have you dead and useless.

Finite Simple Group of Order Two

 

• Binkenstein

Imp Anhk is better for dps builds, as you're not sacrificing useful talents to take it.

Fixed (which makes it less painful for one off rebuffs mid fight)

 

Pokkai

I use 8/3/50 to heal.. it's no stretch to get warding 3/5 knowledge and imp ankh really.(I prefer threat reduction though). Lately I've been fond of 16/0/45 though since I seem to be spending a lot of time farming primals and I can take 15% more expensive totems because we have had hyjal and bt on farm for some time. I wouldn't recommend it for a progressing guild.

 

◊ Zoroaster

I don't have any WWS logs or anything of that sort. I know for sure that twice it has saved me on Najentus, for whatever reason I died, popped back up, and with no buffs I only have 100-200 more hp then the hit I'm about to take, take 10% of that 8500 with talents and suddenly you have some breathing room.

On Council the Blizzard/Flamestrike/Poison damage is all effected. I've barely survived a double blizzard hit a couple times, not sure if I would have lived w/o Warding or not.

Really it comes down to the fact that I don't find myself horribly stretched for mana on any fight anymore, and in MH/BT what kills people most of the time is random burst damage. Also don't need to respec for PvP, another place where there is lots of burst damage.

 

• Raut

8/0/53 - Archimonde 'nuff said.

Baby, you can hold my balls.

13:17 < Kalroth> gays on men tv? I love that channel

 

Sqaarg

I just started healing on my 0/5/56 shaman, and because of my lack of intellect, I took the Ancestral Knowledge talent, knowing that I'll heal (for now) mostly 5-mans and heroics, where Fire, Frost and Nature dmg won't be much of a problem. In my opinion, improved reincarnation could be a potential life/raid saver on 5-mans, heroics and maybe 10 raids. Ofcourse, I haven't been able to test it out much, just started gearing up, but that's just my pair of cents.