I agree that druid/lock is better, but there aren't very many 2v2 healer/dps setups where druids aren't the optimal healer.
I've never played Shammy/ Warrior, but I'm sure it would be really nasty. I have played Shammy/ Rogue, and imo it isn't a great combo. The rogue was mutilate, so it might have been different if he was mace spec, but we tended to lose almost any game with a warrior/ healer, and most games with a rogue/healer when the healer was a druid or a pally.
I had a quick question for Gurg and other high level arena shammy:
What totem (gear slot) do you usually use? Right now I'm using the one that gives +healing to LHW, but I'm trying to decide if I want to spend arena points on the Vengeful totem. Any comments?
The arena relic, yeah. It's a nice bonus though if I were playing with a partner who was capped via resil+talents I might consider a different option.
There's discussion on sham/rogue earlier in this thread, and it's viable, but dru/war in particular absolutely and completely dominates you, and if dru/war is a complete countercomp to you, you have serious problems, because of how common a team setup that is. On the upside you do very well against healer+warlock. Shaman/warrior is fairly standard (and probably the second-best 2v2 for a shaman) but 2-DPS teams with mages or warlocks will give you fits.
I'm currently running Shaman/Warrior and we have had a really good experience so far. Mage/Rogue seems to be the toughest combo for us to beat right now but if played well we can beat them, and we do. We have been able to beat many different priest/rogue, priest/warlock, druid/warlock teams. It has been very surprising and a really nice change from last season. I'm lovin' Shaman/Warrior.
Last season I played Shaman/Rogue and really had a bad time with it. It seems like you have so many weaknesses and not enough strengths. It was VERY frustrating.
I have just started resto shaman PVP, had our first real games this weekend and went 31-10 in 3v3 (1862) playing Warrior, Resto, Pally. Considering we encountered about 7-8 gladiator teams raising teams to sell (I presume they were selling), such as Team Pandemic and other front page BG9 pvpers, I think we started off well. My resilience is still really low sitting just over 200. I have a few questions.
1) When fighting warrior/druid/lock this is normally fairly easy by putting up justice on druid and training him til he dies. However how do you ensure you will be able to get on the druid. The best teams I faced had the druid stay stealthed for as long as possible before throwing up some hots and travel forming away before anyone could react. The damage output of the druid/warrior at the start was hard to control, should the warrior have gotten onto the felpup immediatly to force the druid out, or possibly a dead pup? -admittedly this team did outclass us but this matchup which was normally easy smashed us
2) PRM - it was mentioned that you can't really play against prm with a set strat. I used to play high rated prm on my mage before 2.3 came along and the new 2.3+ version seems really powerful. When playing against this team we have been focusing mage, after 1 certain loss I have decided to change my focus to mage from priest so I can ES the mages casts and focus more on LOS manaburns instead of shocking them. This would be the common way to start this matchup?
I also have trouble with the really good priests going melee tremor -> fear -> burn burn.
The arena relic, yeah. It's a nice bonus though if I were playing with a partner who was capped via resil+talents I might consider a different option.
It's also buff padding. Its great protection for earth shield against fel puppies and hunters. I mean, its kinda silly a warlock pet can solo resto shamans to begin with but...
Has anyone seen if the resil buff has some inherent dispell resistance? Sometimes I have real difficulty punching through that, even if they aren't healing a lot.
I have been playing a Resto Shaman for about 2 month now. Love it. I quit about 5 months ago when our butthat raid leader flat out told me to go f myself, my hunter was not going to raid anymore. Rather pissed me off, and I just cancelled my account and stayed away from WoW. I came back cause I felt my 45 Enh Shaman deserved to atleast hit 70, and cause I missed playing her. Much more fun than my hunter. The RL said, "Spec to resto and we can use your shaman for raids." I geared up rather quickly, and in 2 weeks I had enough gear to make me worth taking to TK/SSC, without a single Kara run. 3 weeks later I had mostly epics and was BT/MH ready. Been doing those ever since. That's my QQ story, so now on to buisness.
About 5-6 weeks ago, a mage friend of mine came back to WoW after having been gone for over a year, and we decided to start an arena team together. I had initially been enhancement up to that point and so I specced back to enhancement for arena. Well under-geared in blues and a green or two, we got ravaged the first week. Then I tried it as restoration spec our second week. We batted .500 with 5-5. Our third week, we hit 6-4, and I had specced elemental, in mostly healer gear. I decided then that I liked to melt faces, and started collecting welfare epics from PvP. On week 4 we were 7-3 with my half elemental, half healer gear. Since we started arena, I had spent quite a lot of gold respeccing 2 times a weekend for arena and after arena so I could raid again. On week 5, I didn't feel like speccing elemental, and just went as my 0/5/56 raid spec. We did better than I expected, 7-3. This week because of some stupid plays on my part 5-5, but for the most part I am seeing a trend when I play on the top of my game. Two of our games were complete wins until I forgot to place a totem, or wasted mana on. I currently only have 5 items that are not elemental gear. My Shoulders, rings, weapon and shield are still healer gear. Win rating aside, in the games I have played, I was better able to do dmg and heal. Just bad luck and low resilience played a part in our defeats.
This leads me to my question, which I can not find a specific topic for on the forums here. This week I have enough points to get a S3 chest and I find myself at a crossroads. I can continue to be a Jack of Two Specs, which has been working. Or I can start from the beginning and start to go only restoration PvP gears. Right now we need more resilience before I can say one or the other is truly more beneficial. This is our key problem right now. But I want to know what other people think before I make my final decision.
I am wondering if any of you have seen this before? Your thoughts and critiques appreciated.
If you want to do 2s and 3s in arena, go as resto. Thats the simple answer. Elemental is less viable in small scale arena than resto. Elemental does very well in 5s, but thats a whole different beast. If you want to keep playing 2s/3s though, stay resto. Resto also has options in 5s, just not as many as elemental.
In all honesty, I'd wait for 2.4 info to be released. Shamans are in desperate need of some major pvp fixes, including but not limited to at least one type of cc or cc-break/immunity, dispell protection, etc. With any luck resto could become more viable in arenas. Barring that, elemental pvp gear has some great benefits being: the best farming gear in game for pve (70% pushback resist = win) and a strong showing in competitive 5s.
I'm just banking my arena points and extra badges for now and seeing what fixes they have in store for us. If nothing else, I can drop it all on enh pvp gear and go terrorize some scrubs in battlegrounds with my rotting torch of the damned!
Any strats for druid/warlock, druid/hunter, priest/hunter? We were at 1790 (so fking close to my mace) and then ran into these three teams 6-7 times bringing us back down to 1660ish which is disheartening. Basically I got ran oom cause scorpids pets are the DEVIL, and when we managed to kill the pet once, I was already oom and the hunter was pwning my partner while I was trying to drink.
Against Hunters with scorpid: Keep Poison Cleansing Totem, use Water Shield and LOS him as much as possible. He should feed you more mana than you'd need to heal yourself, especially as soon as he is oom himself. Do not let him get away drinking, this could end bad. Sould the druid support the hunter heavily with roots on you shock the or ground the druids spells. A warrior should be able to rape a druid while he's trying to snare you though.
Against Warlock/Healer: Keep Tremor down at all times. Keep Water Shield up and keep recasting it, after it's devoured. Before NS'ing any spell make sure to cast Water Shield first or the fellhunter might devour your NS - even when using a macro. Shock, ground or LOS fears and shadow bolts. Keep an eye out for Shadowtrance if they have it. Drop groudning or purge in response to shadowtrance. Ground deathcoil - you should know when they're going to coil, prepare by placing grounding. Heal early. Warlocks are disruption powerhouses, prepare with grounding and by healing early. Your partner will need to learn not to get killed. If it's because they're lured behind a pillar or because they fail at turtling up and los when you're disrupted in a close situation.
If you want to do 2s and 3s in arena, go as resto. Thats the simple answer. Elemental is less viable in small scale arena than resto. Elemental does very well in 5s, but thats a whole different beast. If you want to keep playing 2s/3s though, stay resto. Resto also has options in 5s, just not as many as elemental.
I seem to do better with my mage friend specced either way...
Has anyone tried this though? I mean, can you say for sure its like, pointless beyond all hope to try? If not, I might try it just to report to you all how well it goes.
this is why I need my own thread so I don't have to hijack someone else's...
Running Resto/Sword War, we usually beat Hunter/druid teams. It's just a matter of waiting for them to make a mistake, or run out of water
Keep water shield up at all times, and use downranked healing waves to top yourself off. You'll have no mana while viper sting is up, but the 8+ seconds between viper stings means you should get enough mana to get some heals off. The fact that they will kite your warrior all over the arena really hits home when it comes to the weaknesses of totems. Seriously they don't fucking move, they should be like 100 yard range.
I have been playing a Resto Shaman for about 2 month now. Love it.
(...)
This leads me to my question, which I can not find a specific topic for on the forums here. This week I have enough points to get a S3 chest and I find myself at a crossroads. I can continue to be a Jack of Two Specs, which has been working. Or I can start from the beginning and start to go only restoration PvP gears. Right now we need more resilience before I can say one or the other is truly more beneficial. This is our key problem right now. But I want to know what other people think before I make my final decision.
I am wondering if any of you have seen this before? Your thoughts and critiques appreciated.
This little story presents part of my own dilemma, so thanks for the replies so far and any more to come. Basically I've given up on my Rogue PvP-wise (due to lack of success, and ultimately, also lac of fun in the arena with this particular class), and turned to my under-geared Shammy.
For some reason I've always felt that I might do better as a Healer / Ranged DPS in the arena, and so far, it's more fun, too.
The Problem that I have, is that I can't decide wheter to go Elemental or Resto. I've already picked up a couple of S2 honor pieces as well as the S3 gloves, all of it resto. But with the rediculous queue times in 2v2, where resto is strongest, I'm contemplating spending my banked honor / bagdes on elemental gear.
Which leads me to my question, branching off the above quote:
Would it be viable for a Restoration Shaman to gear himself almost exclusively Elemental? I know GC has done it in duels, but what about 3v3, 5v5? With the resto talents, healing should still work out unless you're the only healer, and, from the top of my head, the worst loss in the elemental tree would be the cast time reduction. Which isn't as severe anymore with the basic cast time lowered last patch.
Personally this would give me the option of going all out Elemental later on if I like, without having to collect both sets (which I couldn't do time-wise anyway).
So what do you think, Resto in Ele gear: Yay or nay?
"If teh alliance had shamens, we wud win more battlegrounses" - random ally (Pre BC)
So what do you think, Resto in Ele gear: Yay or nay?
Given that you get a good amount of spell damage from resto gear (my shammy has +1500 healing and +700 spell damage in mostly resto gear), and that PVP resto gear also has a good amount of crit, I can't see making yourself a gimp healer by using primarily Ele gear. One thing many people do with the actual set pieces is to have 3 piece of the resto and 2 piece of the ele set to get A) the ele glove bonus and B) double +35 resilience set bonuses.
I have a resto shammy I have been working on for a while now too. I am just under 300 resilience and around 1200 healing. What I am usually facing in my 5v5 is my survivability. All too often I am the first one keyed on and I dont seem to live much over 10 seconds. It is helpful for me to see many of you confirm my own experiences where resto shamies dont do too well in 5v5.
I guess it makes some sense, I am a lot easier to kill than a Paly and I can be a pretty good nuisance if I am left alone. Shocks, totems, heals, groundings and so on can be pretty annoying. I am beginning to wonder if I should look at 3v3 for my fun instead of the 5v5. I have to say that currently 5v5 is not much fun at all for me.
From what I have seen of the other comments in this thread resto shammies are largely broken as far as pvp is concerned. Once in a while I get to kill a lock pet but doing even that takes me out of the battle and doing those things I should be. I hope they have some good shammy bandages in 2.4
I have a resto shammy I have been working on for a while now too. I am just under 300 resilience and around 1200 healing. What I am usually facing in my 5v5 is my survivability. All too often I am the first one keyed on and I dont seem to live much over 10 seconds. It is helpful for me to see many of you confirm my own experiences where resto shamies dont do too well in 5v5.
I guess it makes some sense, I am a lot easier to kill than a Paly and I can be a pretty good nuisance if I am left alone. Shocks, totems, heals, groundings and so on can be pretty annoying. I am beginning to wonder if I should look at 3v3 for my fun instead of the 5v5. I have to say that currently 5v5 is not much fun at all for me.
From what I have seen of the other comments in this thread resto shammies are largely broken as far as pvp is concerned. Once in a while I get to kill a lock pet but doing even that takes me out of the battle and doing those things I should be. I hope they have some good shammy bandages in 2.4
Everything depends on the setup you play in 5v5 but the thing is, resto is really not a good spec for 5v5 right now. Why? Well you mention that you can be nuisance if left alone, but what if you were elemental instead with two other healers for backup? You would now have all the things you mention, with weaker heals of course but now being able to put in huge amounts of burst damage instead.
If you wanna do pvp as resto I recommend 2v2 and 3v3 instead where the added survivability of the resto tree comes in handy. Even so I notice that I enjoy playing 3v3 alot more when we play dual healer since when I'm alone I find myself zerged alot with pretty much zero chance to escape.
I see three viable specs (or at least spec "aims") for Resto Shamen in the Arena at this point, and grant that if 2.4 holds what we need (CC-resistance, some form of pretection from Warrior/Rogue rape) this information will quickly become outdated.
Premise #1: Mana Tide Totem is marginalized against skilled teams.
The spell animation would make a team from Helen Keller's School for the Blind, Deaf, and Dumb see it from space. Almost everyone regards it as a priority target to be destroyed immediately. It is 6 talent points that can be easily countered and can definitely be used elsewhere. This means one thing: you cannot use the same spec you use for raiding if you are maximizing your effectiveness in Arenas.
Premise #2: Without Mana Tide, Restorative Totems becomes marginal.
Most arena battles are decided within 10-15 seconds. Almost none last to the point where the extra mana or life gained is relevant.
Premise #3: A Resto Shaman must have the following talents and cannot be effective without them.
There is no need to point out that this is only 29 points. Of the remaining 31, 7 must obviously go into the Restoration tree.
Premise #4: You have a limited number of tasks.
Primary Objective: Healing others. Obviously, you will not win if your DPS classes die, so you must keep them up.
Secondary Objective: Healing yourself. If you die, the DPS won't get healed, meaning they die next. It is not imperative that you survive, however.
Secondary Objective: Heroism popped, totems down. Windfury or Grounding, Earthbind or Tremor, but no matter what they must be down to be working. If someone is destroying them, thank your lucky stars they are not destroying you instead and drop a new one. And enjoy finding a new team if you die before Heroism goes off.
Secondary Objective: Purge. Almost every class has a buff that they need to have that can be removed by you. Heroism, Blessing of Protection, Earth Shield, Power Word: Shield... the list goes on and on. And Purge is an instant cast, so get to it!
Tactical Aims
Dump before Death
You're going to die. You accept it. They are coming for you. Why? Because your totems immediately despawn when you die. Your primary goal is to blow as much of your mana as possible before you go down like a cheerleader on Prom Night. That means a big NS'd Healing Wave or Chain heals, Heroism, Grounding Totems, whatever you can get off quickly and still benefits the team after you die. For this, I recommend the following build:
Here you get the cooldown reduction for Grounding Totems, just in case you last that long. You're looking to drop that Tremor Totem and hopefully catch an Intimidating Shout or Blind (long cooldowns). NS is your best friend. Drop that Mana Tide, it's shiny; maybe they'll let you live another two seconds. Try and get off a few Purges and an Earth Shock on the healer after that while preparing to enjoy the Spectator buff. Disadvantage: after you die, there is a tendency for the people you're supposed to be healing to die.
Resist, Evade, Escape
Get away, get away, get away. There are Warriors, Rogues, and Feral Druids out there, and they are scary. Your only hope is to put distance between you and them. Try this one:
Here, mount up and get ready to ride. Stick and move while your compadres charge in, hoping the other team will choose the closer targets. When someone starts to lose health, pop Heroism, totems, and NS a big heal. Prepare to be noticed. As they advance on you, use Improved Ghost Wolf to cut and run. Disadvantage: Intercept + Hamstring = Blessing of Freedom PLZ!
Absorb and Distract
Here is something they won't expect. Warriors, Rogues, and Hunters live off crits, and there's only one solution. Hit me:
Eye of the Storm, baby! Go head, try and rape me. I'll heal through it (maybe). Plus, against caster teams, you have increased survivability of Elemental Warding and the more frequent Earth Shocks of Reverberation. They certainly won't be expecting it. Optional: Ancestral Knowledge points can go into more Healing Way and Ancrestral Fortitude if you like, but I just can't see either winning a match. Disadvantage: your Resilience is working against you.
Constructive criticism appreciated! Good hunting.
Minister.Kel'thuzad
Last edited by Minister : 01/25/08 at 8:38 PM.
"I'm sorry, honey, but since I stopped playing WoW it appears that there has been some sort of expansion to the game. Unfortunately, it appears to be quite good." -- Me to my Wife
I see three viable specs (or at least spec "aims") for Resto Shamen in the Arena at this point, and grant that if 2.4 holds what we need (CC-resistance, some form of pretection from Warrior/Rogue rape) this information will quickly become outdated.
I don't agree with most of the content of this post, but the thing I like the least is the self-defeating attitude that pervades the whole thing. Yes it would be nice if Earth Shield had dispel resistance, but resto shaman really aren't that terrible in arena.
Premise #1: Mana Tide Totem is useless against skilled teams.
Not true at all. Mana tide is useful always if you can place it in a good place or use it at the right time, even in 2v2. In 5v5 it becomes game-changingly powerful. Anything that lets your team last your team last an extra 20 seconds or get in another burst before going oom is really nice, even if it is easily countered.
Premise #2: Without Mana Tide, Restorative Totems becomes marginal.
True. If you're dead set against tide for some reason, I wouldn't get restorative totems either.
Premise #3: A Resto Shaman must have the following talents and cannot be effective without them.
I disagree that tidal mastery is 100% necessary, as well as tidal focus. 5% crit is not make or break, nor is 5% mana off of heals. If you think that 5% heal mana is needed, why isn't the 5% total mana talent in enh needed? I agree with the rest of the talents, and I think nature's guardian is also necessary. It will win you games by itself (think lock / healer or hunter/healer teams), and is the only talent that actually directly gives you more survivability.
Premise #4: You have three tasks in any Arena match.
Well, aside from the fact that you listed four objectives split into two categories, you did mention most of the things a shaman can do in arena. However, what your primary objective is changes depending on your team and bracket. Playing war/sham/pal, you aren't really the main healer and your utility is paramount. Playing the single healer in 4dps 5v5, your heal throughput is what counts. In 2v2, your mana efficiency or ability to tank damage becomes more important. It's impossible to order the roles of shaman in general as it changes.
Dump before Death
This might have been better if you could look past the tears in your eyes to see the game being played. You also said 0/7/54 and linked to a 0/5/56 profile, so I don't really know what you mean here. You didn't really mention anything that this spec brings to the table besides NS (which all specs will have), mana tide (which you said was useless?) and improved grounding totem (which isn't in the spec that you linked).
Resist, Evade, Escape
I think this is just you wishing you were a druid, correct me if I'm wrong. Trying to ghost wolf away from anything probably won't get you far if you're actually being focused, and if you're not, well, you're not doing anything. It's a waste of 2 points.
Absorb and Distract
A) Eye of the Storm doesn't give you any advantage over just having earth shield up.
B) Reverb is 5 talent points for -1 second on shock cooldown, not even elemental shamans usually get this.
C) No reason to get the -mana cost talents as resto, if you just want the utility of a shock, use rank 1. In times where you want damage, the 5% damage talent is a better option.
D) Resil doesn't hurt EotS as it gives a base chance to proc even off non-crits.
Elemental warding is a good reason to go into elemental, though.
My apologies, I was at work and realized I could leave, so I didn't organize my thoughts the whole way through or proofread the amount necessary. I've incorporated most of your suggestions.
Originally Posted by Malakitoo
I don't agree with most of the content of this post, but the thing I like the least is the self-defeating attitude that pervades the whole thing. Yes it would be nice if Earth Shield had dispel resistance, but resto shaman really aren't that terrible in arena.
I didn't say we were terrible. And the thing that makes me sad about your post is your complete failure to note the several sarcastic and humorous references and realize that I'm not self-defeatist at all: I'm just poking fun at ourselves. I enjoy Arena healing and think Resto Shamen are great... otherwise why would I be posting?
Originally Posted by Malakitoo
Not true at all. Mana tide is useful always if you can place it in a good place or use it at the right time, even in 2v2. In 5v5 it becomes game-changingly powerful. Anything that lets your team last your team last an extra 20 seconds or get in another burst before going oom is really nice, even if it is easily countered.
Okay, I agree that it is great if not countered. But is 6 talent points worth something that a wand hit can take away from your team?
Originally Posted by Malakitoo
This might have been better if you could look past the tears in your eyes to see the game being played.
I'm being a little facetious here. I'd appreciate it if you removed the condescension.
Originally Posted by Malakitoo
I think this is just you wishing you were a druid, correct me if I'm wrong. Trying to ghost wolf away from anything probably won't get you far if you're actually being focused, and if you're not, well, you're not doing anything. It's a waste of 2 points.
In a way, you're correct. Our advantage, however, is that our totems and Heroism are working while we are moving (similar to a Druid's HoTs). Can we agree that Improved Ghost Wolf is a great tool for getting away from damage? Can we agree that there are few other places the two points could be put into this build?
Originally Posted by Malakitoo
Eye of the Storm doesn't give you any advantage over just having earth shield up.
I disagree. Earth Shield heals and slows damage taken, especially from Rogues. EotS lets you heal while you are doing that anyway.
Originally Posted by Malakitoo
Reverb is 5 talent points for -1 second on shock cooldown, not even elemental shamans usually get this.
This is because Elemental Shamen take Call of Thunder instead. Resto Shamen have no such tether to that talent, and I think the reduced Earth Shock cooldown will be of great use.
Originally Posted by Malakitoo
Resil doesn't hurt EotS as it gives a base chance to proc even off non-crits.
I did not know this. Do you have a source?
Overall, I think we will come to understand that we agree on many aspects of the Resto Shamen usefulness. I apologize for my first post bearing an"authoritative" tone; that is not what is necessary to facilitate the dialogue I need to become a better shaman. I thank you for your time in responding.
Minister.Kel'thuzad
Last edited by Minister : 01/25/08 at 8:41 PM.
"I'm sorry, honey, but since I stopped playing WoW it appears that there has been some sort of expansion to the game. Unfortunately, it appears to be quite good." -- Me to my Wife
I'm a resto shaman currently trying to improve my self as much as i can, I currently tend to die pretty easily with 400 resil, and around 1600 +healing, and 10.7k hp and im wondering what i should be gemming for, should i go for more plus healing..or what im realy not sure, also what spec do you recommend for a resto shaman, thx in advance.
Can we agree that Improved Ghost Wolf is a great tool for getting away from damage?
Improved Ghost Wolf can be dispelled, has a cast time with generally no pushback resistance, and doesn't remove snares. I don't really think it's a great tool at all, to be honest.
There are a number of better resto talents you can pick up with two points - Nature's Guidance, some Tidal Mastery (which I agree with Malakitoo isn't a required resto talent, but is still better than Imp. Ghost Wolf), etc.
I disagree. Earth Shield heals and slows damage taken, especially from Rogues. EotS lets you heal while you are doing that anyway.
I'm not even sure what you mean by that. A shaman with Earth Shield on himself has 100% resistance to pushback on his heals (30% from Earth Shield, 70% from Healing Focus).
100% is as good as it gets - EotS doesn't improve upon that.
I did not know this. Do you have a source?
It is pretty much accepted that defensive abilities that proc off crits (for example, Blessed Resilience, Focused Will, Natural Perfection, Enrage, etc) gain an X% chance to proc off of normal hits, where X% is the amount of crit reduction you gain from resilience.
Sorry, I know you asked for a source. It was patched in a long time ago when the concerns over resilience reducing the effectiveness of defensive abilities became apparent.
As far as Eye of the Storm goes, I'm not convinced it's worth the points. In my experience, fights will have to fulfill several conditions in order for it to be useful:
1) You need somebody hitting you that generates at least relatively frequent crits. Felhunters don't count (which is an enormous downside, because they always seem to be hitting me). Warriors, rogues, hunters, etc. all fit the bill.
2) You need to not be the target of purge/dispel spam. Unfortunately, when you're getting focused, this is often the case, since you often have Earth Shield on yourself.
Essentially, this makes it mostly useless. It's good against hunters (where it provides additional protection against arcane shot hitting earth shield) and the occasional assist train that doesn't include purging, but that's really about it. Every now and then it'll work outside of that, but meh. Most of the time either earth shield is on you (because you're getting focused), or neither would be on you (because you're getting dispelled). It's not awful, but in my experience it's just a bit too deep in that tree for how effective it really is.
Plus, against caster teams, you have increased survivability of Elemental Warding and the more frequent Earth Shocks of Reverberation.
For what it's worth, I like Reverberation for the "My job is really not to heal, but to control their casters" situations, where I really am doing a shock every time the cooldown is up in order to stymie their healing or dps. However, there are simply too many times when its cooldown falls mid LHW or HW, or just a bit too soon for me to take advantage of it (e.g. if the paladin doesn't start the heal until 6 seconds after my last shock instead of 5, it doesn't really matter that I had Reverb). I think if you're going 15+ points outside of a resto, an 8/7/X build is superior. Grounding Totem serves a similar purpose to earth shock in a lot of situations...the difference being that it's a lot easier to consistently take advantage of a 2 second reduction on a 15 second cooldown than it is to take advantage of a 1 second reduction on a 6 second cooldown. And of course Grounding Totem's design simply makes it easier to use in that regard (you can drop it to "get the cooldown rolling" with the anticipation that it will at least absorb *something*, whereas that would be a remarkably foolish thing to do with earth shock).
My shaman has 200 resilience, ~9k health, and I play mostly BGs and very little arenas, just to give the above opinions some context.
I like the functionality of the 8/7/46, but I still can't bring myself to try to start sneaking out Mana Tides. I've taken Healing Way and Ancestral Fortitude instead.
"I'm sorry, honey, but since I stopped playing WoW it appears that there has been some sort of expansion to the game. Unfortunately, it appears to be quite good." -- Me to my Wife
In my opinion, saying Mana Tide isn't worth the points is ridiculous. I agree that the totem (and totems in general) has problems, and it is extremely annoying that Shadowfiend is often stronger then Tide, but Tide has won more fights then I care to count. It all comes down to placement... with smart placement, 1 of 2 things has to happen: Your team either gets a large amount of mana, or 1 enemy has to take 5+ seconds to deal with it.
I'm not even sure what you mean by that. A shaman with Earth Shield on himself has 100% resistance to pushback on his heals (30% from Earth Shield, 70% from Healing Focus).
100% is as good as it gets - EotS doesn't improve upon that.
Also if you play with a paladin, we get concentration aura which maxes our resistance to pushback. That way we can earth shield whoever is being focused and use water shield on ourselves.
01/17/08, 5:54 PM
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