I have to disagree. I've relied pretty heavily on TC this tier, which differs very greatly from how I played last tier. I like that it gives me the option to just bulldoze through my mana pool. With my healing core, that proves to be very useful. I can always find time to LB.

The other resto shaman I raid with doesn't use TC. We perform pretty evenly. Following the trend of a lot of the above posts; Shaman healing really is at a point where you can tune your gear/spec (within reason) to fit your play style. It can differ quite greatly from someone who is performing just as well as you.

I'm not so sure, I'm almost the opposite of this. Lets look at each heroic fight in relation to TC:

Shannox: Can be used but not needed at all, fight is too short.
Rhyolith: Can be used to have full mana for burn phase, but easy enough on healing that it isn't needed.
Bethtilac: I do use it on this fight to top up mana in between AOE healing phases and to have full mana for last phase.
Alysrazor: Not needed at all.
Baleroc: Mana is tight here, but so are globals, so I don't use it in this fight even though I'm oom by the end.
Majordomo: Not needed at all.
Rag: I use it on this fight where I can, but it is difficult to use.

So two out of seven fights on 25m heroic in my experience is where its useful.

Every time you do spam 5-6 lbs at a boss while people aren't topped, other people are healing that damage up while you're regening so to me it feels more like a rebalancing of the healers combined mana pools, which can be good in a lot of situations.

I stacked a lot more spirit in the last tier of content (for mana tide) but I also found myself spamming lb more. I feel its down to a mix of encounter design and raid comp/kill strategy.

It's a crutch I've come to depend on, and I can't wait to spec out of it when it is no longer needed honestly.

While I mostly agree with Larlar on tc usage, I don't agree about Majordomo or Rag. I make heavy use of tc during Majordomo's cat form, and use this extra mana to draw out his scorpion form. And during the transitions on Rag I see good returns as well.

I'm also exactly the opposite in the spirit department as well; I've reforged out of a good deal of spirit. It really trivializes the encounters where mana is easy to come by, and on encounters where mana is tight I simply play smart by using cds and tc.

Not to make assumptions here, but he's talking about heroic majordomo and from the sound of it you're talking about normal. It changes the fight dramatically.

I have found much of our healing, in Firelands, is done (as stated before) with multiple targets below 25% health. This then gave everyone the assumption that Mastery is a viable stat. It is, in the later Firelands boss fights. Of course it isn't in many other situations. With the boost to Crit, and much of our talents being based on Crit heals, I have experimented and come to the conclusion that getting Crit up at the expense of Mastery is not only viable, but I have better performance overall (Raiding 25man Normal Firelands). Crit seems to have constant throughput, and though there are situations where Mastery will beat it out slightly, Crit is constantly the best stat. I keep Haste at or above 916 on all of my gear configurations, then go for Crit. I sometimes have to reforge Crit to Haste to keep the minimum Haste of 916 on all of my gear configurations. I got 916 as a break point from previous discussions here and elsewhere (and the help of Jessamy).

Telluric Currents seems to be a must with Crit building and gearing. With all of my research and experience, I have come to use my own HEP values for evaluating gear. When I begin doing Heroic Firelands, things may change as I meet the new challenges and possibly find weakness in my gearing and talent choices. My current state of thought will always be found on my HEP webpage (Best-in-Slot) and my build from the armory. I waited quite awhile to post here, not wanting to speak up until I had a grasp on things and did a great deal of experimentation. Trinkets are a wildcard and best suited to individual needs (I use at least one for mana regen).

Draewind's "Best-in-Slot" page
(The links, on the page above, do not show reforging, but it is built into the item values by the method stated in the section on Gemming and Reforging.)

If anyone finds an item I may have overlooked, please let me know (using the "Error Report" link near the bottom of the page or in a private message). I will eventually get the page form based and allow individuals to enter their own HEP values for analyzing gear on a personal basis. Using the "Wowhead" links and adjusting the values there, is a good way of doing that now. (Item values on the page are normalized and match Wowhead values fairly closely for items without special procs or uses.)

Edit: Minimum Haste from 1410 to 916.

There are two problems with aiming for your 1410 haste target.

First, that isn't a breakpoint for additional ticks for any of our HoTs. You can find a good listing of haste breakpoints here:

http://elitistjerks.com/f79/t121202-...g_4_2_a/#Haste

Second, aiming for any breakpoints at all isn't a significant benefit to your healing. You do get an additional tick when you reach a breakpoint -- but only if you never refresh the heal. If you do refresh a heal, then haste continues to provide consistent throughput increases to that heal between the haste breakpoints. And the extra tick you get from heals that you don't refresh is a small increase compared to the other ways that haste helps you between breakpoints. Until you reach the 1.0 second global cooldown soft cap, there aren't any breakpoints at all for direct heals.

Of course, as Sixthy said, you might find that a particular level of haste just feels right to you. The natural casting rhythm that you fall into can become a subconscious muscle memory thing. This is a real benefit, and if 1410 haste provides the casting speed that works best for you to keep your raid alive, then you should continue gearing as you do. But there's no theorycrafting reason to recommend it to others.

I would like to have a question. Does goblin racial counts to our riptide and earthliving ticks? It says 1% at the spreadsheet but as far as I read the goblin racial (casting and attack speed) only counts when we cast and if the HoTs are considered instant than those shouldn't be affected. Is it the case or its applying to Hots and Dots as well?

10% haste means you get 10% more casts in the same time, not 10% less cast time, so actually 10% haste would give you 1100. To boot, 10% haste would be 1280 rating.

10% mastery on the other hand are 10/3 = 3.33 mastery (note: no percent), which are about 600 rating.

@Zargouhl From what I understand there is no doubt that haste point-for-point offers the greatest increase in HPS over mastery especially when pushing over significant thresholds for additional ticks on spells.

However the complexity of the healing system means that, unlike most DPS classes, we also have to take into consideration mana as the resource for allowing us to heal. In the example you gave (with Aanzeijar's correction) yes the haste comes out very favourably in terms of HPS even with mastery at full strength but you need to bear in mind that to reach that same level of healing you have had to cast another 1.1 heals effectively increasing you mana usage by 10%.

My answer to you then on why a large number of Resto's choose to stack mastery (certainly in 10's, but also for a range of roles in 25's) is that not only does it offers very competitive HPS to haste but it has a far higher HPM allowing you to last longer and conserve mana, something I have found a godsend for progression.

No it doesn't. Both are 10% increased healing, but it costs more than double the amount of haste rating to achieve than mastery. If haste would ever beat mastery at 1 HP in any context, mastery would be an atrocious stat for us.

Actovision pointed out that the mastery/haste breakpoint is wrong. Doing the math he provided and the original math again, I'm afraid he's correct, and the correct breakpoint is at 53.3%.

For refrence, this is the math given by Avtovision:

and this is the original math given by Jynus in R41#4:

This should have been:

1% / 128.06 = (1 - Health) * 3% / 179.28
1/3 * 179.28/128.06 = 1 - Health
Health = 1 - 179.28 / 128.06 /3 = 53.333%

Front post will be updated accordingly. edit 2011-09-09: done