[Resto] Cataclysm Raiding and Discussion - Page 25

Malef� cent · 04/01/11, 4:18 AM

Originally Posted by Amilie

1) If most of us "have to" dispel, then isn't a talent that makes it cheaper and tosses a free heal on top of it strongly recommendable? I fail to see your point. It's just semantics.

2) Ancestral Resolve is not useless. It's a survivability talent. But it's unappealing because there are still alternatives that will, on most fights, save you Mana and heal more.

3) Yeah, okay, if you happen to be banging your head against the one fight that removes the need for Shamans dispelling, maybe ICS and CW are not needed. But that's true for what, 0.1% of the Shaman population? That still makes ICS and CW two eminently recommendable talents.

Going to have to disagree with you here Amilie, In both of my specs I have not opted for CW, it is simply not required, the heal is very average, and the mana cost is very meh.

There are far better places to be putting 2 talent points than in here, AR is certainly one of them. Of course this does totally depend on your raid setup and what you are raiding, ie 10s vs 25s and HC vs Normal. If its 10's then yes perhaps worth getting as you will no doubt be called upon to dispel more. If 25's then not so much. If its HC's then you really do want to be going for AR, that dmg reduction is extremely useful and as you mentioned saving mana and healing more, this means you dont have to pop and extra heal on yourself because you have saved the inc dmg, thus saving mana anyway.

It does therefore totally depend on your own circumstances, if you are in 10's then maybe go for it, otherwise others are better.

Think of it another way, there are not that many occasions each fight even under the best of conditions when you might dispel things, many fight require no dispelling at all. However you will always take dmg and reducing this is far better in my opinion.

Amilie · 04/01/11, 7:26 AM

Originally Posted by Malef� cent

Going to have to disagree with you here Amilie, In both of my specs I have not opted for CW, it is simply not required, the heal is very average, and the mana cost is very meh.

Perhaps I haven't been clear enough yet in both of my posts.

Never once did I say that ICS and CW are required, which is the straw man people have been focusing on thus far. I have stated that its position as recommended is still justified, even after the 6-second nerf that's incoming next patch, because its PvE contribution has essentially not been reduced.

A recommended talent is just that -- one you should pick up unless a) you know your shit and feel you can play without it, or b) are in a situation (raid comp or otherwise) that somehow reduces its usefulness. If that's your case, great, but your anecdotal evidence still does not invalidate the claim that, for most Shamans, picking ICS and CW up is the best option out of the available talents to fill out the Resto tree.

• Jessamy · 04/01/11, 5:30 PM

Both sides of this cleansing waters debate are valid in the correct circumstances. There's no need to prove your points further.

Vice · 04/09/11, 8:13 AM

Originally Posted by Rahdik

If you're using the TC/Elemental Precision spec your sole purpose is a giant mana tide totem.

You could not be more wrong. As a lover of the TC/EP spec I can tell you a shaman becomes incredibly versatile if their offensive spells are guaranteed not to miss. TC means you never run out of mana personally while providing some of the best throughput in the game. EP means you will never miss a Lightning Bolt, allowing you to continue healing while seemingly bone dry on mana. Let's not forget interrupting, having another person with a reliable interrupt on the shortest cooldown of all the interrupts is invaluable in this tier of content.

You spec TC/EP because the second tier talents in the enhancement tree are not useful in this tier of content at all. When have you ever found having instant ghost wolf useful, 1 fight, 2 fights(only Atramades and Nef come to mind)? It's the same argument as the ICS/CW argument; it's too situational to warrant full time talent points. As soon as you get into ghost wolf, you are no longer casting healing spells or lightning bolts. If you are going to argue that you need ghost wolf for long periods of movement, my comeback is simply SWG.

Rahdik · 04/09/11, 2:27 PM

I posted that response before the buffs in 4.0.6. Prior to that, when the spec was first noticed, it was literally only for a big mana tide totem. You could see the player's armory and notice they had Glyph of Flame Shock, Lava Burst, and Flametongue.

I could list all the fights where Ghost Wolf is useful but that's already been done multiple times and I can assure you the list is longer than Atramedes and Nefarian. I'm also not sure why your comeback to "I need ghostwolf for a long period of time" is SWG because SWG does not increase your movement speed.

On the interrupt topic: EP wont matter because Wind Shear can't miss but I'd also argue there are multiple times where Wind Shear is the least valuable interrupt. Spells like Arcane Annihilator and Blast Wave (Prototype adds on Nefarian) are constantly cast unless interrupted, and the duration of the school lockout from that interrupt is what determines when the next spell will be cast. Since Wind Shear is only a 2 second lockout as opposed to Kick/Skull Bash/Rebuke's 6 second lockout, using Wind Shear causes MORE interrupts needed and will screw you over. This is *mostly* only true on 25 mans, as some of these things can be solo interrupted on 10 man.

Malef� cent · 04/10/11, 6:29 AM

It all comes down to personal preference, I happen to be an advocate of the EP build because A) it allows my LB's to never miss thus giving me lots of Mana to play with and B) actually causes dmg.

Now I know that many people say well you should not be using so much Mana etc, however there are many occasions where you are left not really doing anything and casting a LB here is a very good option. I also have gone a full Spirit Build as tjhis further allows both myself and fellow healers greater Mana Regen.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

This is our latest Cho'gall Kill, you will note that by gearing for Spirit and an EP build this has not gimped my output in anyway, in fact probably increases in.

In addition to being able to heal from start to finish without any downtime I also contributed to dmg. Not a huge amount I grant you, however on fights where everything matters it makes a huge difference. For example, had I not caused 600k dmg (300k in LB's) we would not have killed Cho'gall, it was that close.

However my caveat to this is that you need the gear to be able to give you the base int which means you still hit hard enough. Fortunately at the point where an EP build starts to help you as a healer, you are at the level where you are obtaining such gear. I don't think that an EP build is required when first entering into HC's as the requirements are not as harsh on Mana as they get later in the tier.

So in summary, until Mana becomes an issue for you, you won't need to go down the EP route, but once it does its a lovely thing to have it there to allow you to adapt to the greater demands placed on you.

In regards to the whole "instant golf wolf" issue, I personally very rarely used it, but I did find the +movement speed to be useful, but I have also not really found a fight where it is missed, but then I do have rocket jump for those "Oh Crap" moments.

• Jessamy · 04/10/11, 7:23 PM

Philondra is no longer playing the game and hasn't posted here in a few months. With patch 4.1 coming soon, Aanzeijar has kindly volunteered to take over maintaining a current resto shaman guide. (Thanks!) Please continue discussing healing mechanics and best practices in the new thread here:

http://elitistjerks.com/f79/t121202-...raiding_4_1_a/