yeah I been wondering what to do about 3pc t2 now. I haven't decided I think 3pc t2 would still be better than the new t6 pcs but my desire to wear them has dropped a good deal. If only they made a 8pc bonus and made it the same as 3pc t2 then we would have the ultimate chain heal set..

I kept forgetting to look at the mana cost for eath shield was I was on did you happen to notice it? I was curious if the mana efficiency of earth shield changed or they just mage it about the same per change and reduced the charges.

I *think* it was 450 mana, so 75 mana per charge. It currently costs 900 mana for 10 charges, or 90 mana per charge. So each charge will cost 16.7% less mana to cast but you will have to cast it 40% more often. Shamans already spend a lot of time on the GCD due to water shield and totems. So I greet the new Earth Shield with mixed emotions. Obviously, the lower mana cost really helps in PVP where it gets dispelled quickly. It doesn't really matter in an arena whether it has 6 or 10 charges. Only 1-2 will go off before it's gone.

So any chance that Blizzard extended the untalented range of totems to 30 yards (40 yards with talents) and just forgot to mention it in the PTR notes? No? Sigh...

I would feel less positive about the change to earth shield charges if not for the fact that I will be able to drop totems 10% faster with spell haste affecting the GCD.

Just wanted to report, that I used the T2-Pieces during one Raid and it improved my HPS by 300-400 on each bossfight. On some encounters a shadowpriest is very helpful. I wrote a spreadsheet to calcutate the benefits of wearing T2. I'll try to translate it to english and uptload it for you. It may be helpful.

Wearing
[Belt of Ten Storms] over [Girdle of Fallen Stars]
[Bracers of Ten Storms] over [Howling Wind Bracers]
[Greaves of Ten Storms] over [Treads of the Life Path]

is a lost of 274 heal and 22 mp5 or over 100 haste with a few other pieces for higher traditional hps.

Does the set bonus increase chainheal to 100/80/40 or 100/65/32?

You would know the answer to the question if you had taken a minute to read the first page of the thread, which has a whole section on using T2. And the real healing co-efficient is neither of the numbers listed above.

Hi--I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. Posting this as a test balloon. I'd like to know if you find this useful, and when I continue development on this application whether you would want me to post revised versions here.

Using a series of Ruby scripts I've been working on for about two weeks, I wrote an application to automatically parse live data out of Wowhead and into a spreadsheet. I do have written permission from Wowhead to do this, so don't jump my case on that. >_> As for taking two weeks, I wrote a comprehensive library for building this spreadsheet and didn't just hack together a script; as a result, I have a durable application that can generate almost any class/spec a gear spreadsheet from live Wowhead data.

The spreadsheet format is OpenOffice Calc. If you don't have OpenOffice, get it. It's free.

This is an early iteration of the spreadsheet, with all data intact but very little "polish". Later I'll add things like coloration, links to items, full tooltips on mouseover, etc. For now, it works, and I just wanted to get it out there. It does include gear from patch 2.4.

Resto Shaman Gear Spreadsheet (Including 2.4 Loot)

A brief FAQ:

What is 10MM?
This is a stat I developed called "10 minute mana". Most fights in raids are between 5 and 15 minutes, with most enrage timers being 10 minutes or so. So, the 10MM stat takes into account your int, mp5, and two mana tide totems (one at 2m30s, one at 7m30s) for total mana provided during a 10 minute fight. (You can adjust the length of the fight on the Control tab. The stat is still called "10 minute mana" but will reflect the mana gained from the piece for whatever fight length you choose.)

What about the other stats?
Columns B through K are pure stats pulled off of the gear. 10MM, Heal, Haste, and Sta are derived stats based on the gear itself and any gems you have socketed. You can control what your gems are worth on the Control tab. Note that the Heal stat also accounts for the 10% bonus that the priest spirit buff provides from Spirit, but otherwise spirit is not counted.

What is Ranking?
Item level calculation is based on modifiers, stats, and powers of stats, etc. etc., in a complicated formula. Ranking is simply an expression of the calculated stats (10MM, Heal, Haste, Sta) that roughly mirrors item level calculations. It does not take powers or any other nonsense; it's a pure expression of what the item is "worth" to a resto shaman at flat value. 10MM is counted as though entirely made up of MP5 for more accurate rankings. Important: Ranking is NOT an official stat or a hard-line rule of any kind. It is a value used to approximately rank gear that transcends item level, and items of similar rank should be examined heavily for various advantages on the derived stats.

What happened to Int?
Int is a dumb stat. When you get a point of int, you actually get a little crit, a little mana, and a little healing. You also get a little more mana if you mana tide. Int (including tides) has been broken up and shuffled off into the calculated stats so that it will mix with healing and 10MM for more abstract comparison.

What happened to spell crit?
While shamans do get some benefit from spell crit via talents, it's not significant enough to focus on for PvE itemization. Furthermore, the PvP gear has all the crit you really need if you really want to focus on it. So, I did not parse it at all.

What about trinkets and relics?
These are a small, well-defined subset of gear pieces with very few distributed stats. A spreadsheet will do very little good when comparing them. When choosing trinkets and a relic, consult Wowhead comments for guidance.

Does the sheet account for socket bonuses?
No. The formulas required to account for all socket bonuses would be unbelievably long. Sorry, you'll have to work on that yourself. If you want to see what a piece of gear would be like if you don't socket the correct gems, just change the count for other gems in the item.

You're not counting set bonuses / procs / sexy graphics!
No, I'm not. This is for broad-base pure stat analysis for quick calculations without having to crunch the math yourself on every item you want to compare. When weighing two pieces of gear that are about the same tier, you will have to judge a lot more than what's simply on this spreadsheet. My goal is that the spreadsheet will make this math easier.

Enjoy.

Frakir*
Resto Shaman, Eredar

Patch 2.4
* Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.

So what does this mean for Shaman?

Very little.

The change only affects mana regeneration outside of the 5-second rule. Most shaman spend close to 100% of their time within the five second rule. This is primarily due to the fact that 1) We lack HoTs 2) If we’re not healing, we are dropping totems and refreshing Water Shield.

Spirit remains mostly irrelevant when evaluating gear.

However, we are going to see an increase in our mana regeneration outside the FSR. The average shaman (with full raid buffs including spirit) will gain about 116 mp5 while not casting. Divine Spirit alone will be worth an extra 36 mp5 while not casting.

You may also hear a lot of talk about how certain elixirs and flasks will become better choices. Nothing has changed for the shaman class in this regard.

Well Fed +8 mp5 > Well Fed +20 spirit
Flask of Restoration > Flask of Distilled Wisdom

Let’s take the following example.

Buffed = Arcane Int, BoK, BoW, Mark, Divine Spirit, Improved Mana Spring, Water shield
NOTE: You can get another 49 mp5 while casting from food, oils and a flask.


How can I see how this change will affect my mana regen outside the 5-second rule?

To input your own spirit, intellect and mp5, I recommend using one of these spreadsheets: http://shannonskipper.googlepages.com/MP5.xls
SpeedShare - Download MP5extended_02.15.2008.xls
It's the same spreadsheet but two different people are updating it.

Please be aware that the authors are still refining the spreadsheet and it is often updated a few times each day. Also, please note that I modified my spreadsheet to include water shield and that is not yet an option on the original spreadsheet (although I requested the author add it).

If you really want to get into the nitty gritty details of the change (you math lovers), here is the EJ thread on the topic:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t21280-i...rycrafting_hq/

EDIT: Fixed image; added link to second spreadsheet

Updated the Sunwell gear spreadsheet.

Resto Shaman Gear Spreadsheet (Including 2.4 Loot)

Changes:
- Updated data to include the overnight badge loot changes which are already on Wowhead (info here).
- Fixed a problem with the way Haste was calculated in the Ranking stat
- Updated to a prettier format
- Made all calculated values have zero decimal places for readability
- Changed Stamina to Hit Points (for consistency with mana)
- Rearranged columns to make calculated stats first, for readability

I exported the sheet to Excel format, but there was an issue with the export. Excel is not capable of diagonal labels.

OpenOffice:


Excel:


Anyway, here's the sheet:
http://www.nexusarcanus.net/wow/sham..._gear_2-17.xls

Edit: This post got really long. This is a defense and explanation of what Ranking is, why I did it that way, and how you should interpret it when you look at my spreadsheet.

Those values are not arbitrary. Those are stat values used in calculating item level. I did not use the powers formula for calculating item value, but instead took a flat value comparison. (If I took the actual iLevel, it would be unnecessarily complex; taking a flat ranking will show two-stat items for their true "value" compared to four-stat items.) Check here for details. Go back and read my FAQ; the "Ranking" stat is NOT meant as a hard-line indicator of an item's value. It is primarily to order the items roughly in terms of their value to healing shamans. Individual differences between items need to be gauged by hand by looking at the four derived stats.

Likewise, 10 Minute Mana does not have an arbitrary worth. As I said in the FAQ (again, please go read it), I took the 10 Minute Mana stat and weighted it as though it were entirely made of MP5. Basically this means that the "Ranking" stat does away with Int entirely; Int is converted to MP5 based on how long the fight is supposed to last as indicated in the Control tab (also taking tides into account).

I think you're misunderstanding the intention of the "Ranking" stat. It is a quasi-arbitrary number that closely mirrors the way item level is actually calculated. I flagged as "Important" in my FAQ above that you should NOT look at Ranking exclusively when comparing gear. The four derived stats are the true intention of that spreadsheet.

Why include Ranking at all? Sorting. Item level is not arbitration; it's a core functionality of the game and determines which bosses drop specific loot. If I did *not* provide a stat that approximates item level ranking, then most people who use the spreadsheet seriously would have to *create* one in order to figure out approximately what value to put on items. I will not give you a dynamic formula to create your own rankings, because something like "Heal Equivalent Points" is a rather ludicrous concept. You choose items based on their uses; one might be fast, one might give you a lot of mana, one might spike your healing, and one might give you the health needed to endure certain fights. THOSE are the real rankings, and the variables they represent are fully independent and each have to be considered. The "Ranking" stat simply brings those values together for the purpose of sorting.

Another purpose of ranking (as opposed to item level) is to be able to provide a place in the chart for items that have Spirit, Spell Crit, or Resilience on them, without actually taking those values into consideration, insofar as they don't affect the four derived stats (as Spirit does a little because of the priest buff). When these items are present, the "Ranking" stat will be lower than would be normal for the item level, due to the stat being counted as zero (or near zero in the case of Spirit). Furthermore, item level values take each stat to a power (1.5 is the suspected value), add them, and then take the inverse power (.66). This means that items with only two stats (such as the [Emberspur Talisman]) is a lot more "expensive" in item level because it's two high stats instead of four more evenly distributed stats. Ranking does away with that entirely; taking each stat as a flat value will smooth out those spikes and allow for a more neutral comparison.

What you're left with, regarding Ranking, is a list that from top to bottom closely mirrors the progression chart of the game. The top of the chart is Sunwell, then BT/Hyjal, then SSC/TK, then tier 4 content. Places where they don't match up are where you need to get a "shaman worth value" of an item that isn't meant for the class (such as resto druid gear), or for loot that doesn't precisely match a tier (such as badge loot, *some* crafted items, and PVP gear). As an added benefit, the chart can be automatically updated within minutes the moment Wowhead refreshes live data.

Loot Rank is dumb. (I don't use it, but I'm assuming it gives you a raw value based on your own rankings of stats.) Let's say I'm about to do a long, looooooong fight. I have [Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted] and [Cloak of Ancient Rituals] in my inventory. If I blindly equipped stuff because Loot Rank told me to, then I'd equip the Cloak, right? By formula, it's more valuable. Hell, it comes from ZA, and the first one comes from Kara! Obviously the second is better.

This is a rather extreme example, because you can see that the stainless cloak has mp5 on it. The purpose of my spreadsheet is to show you how *much* of a mana advantage you'll get (a whopping 1500 mana over 10 min) for how much healing you lose (3 healing and 25 haste rating). You didn't pick up a calculator to see that; it's right there on the sheet. THAT is precise evidence, none of this "well, I got this in ZA, and that cloak *only* has 7 mp5...". Also, you get perspective on comparisons like that one; seeing all the gear shows you just how many pieces give you a higher 10MM than the regen piece you're looking at.

Another example that's relevant to me: I have [Gloves of Centering] as one of my few remaining kara pieces. I still use them and never bothered to get the tier4 gloves because we always have alts in our Kara badge runs and I don't really need them. Also, I never wanted to spend the badges on [Polished Waterscale Gloves] because I didn't consider more mp5 and LESS healing a very significant upgrade. (Pure +Healing is, after all, the epeen stat that transcends class.) However, I can see now that it gives me almost 1k more mana, 80 more health (every little bit helps), and only drops healing by 14. Furthermore, only two other pieces in the game ([Gloves of Unfailing Faith] and [Gauntlets of the Ancient Frostwolf]) have a higher 10MM, and both of those are currently prohibitive. Definitely worth buying the badge gloves to go into my regen set.

My comparison sheet:

Let me upload my current comparison sheet that I was hunched over last night. My raid group is in late Tier 5 content, and working on Kael to break into Tier 6 content. For the sheet, I changed a few values to account for socket bonuses (something that I will be including in a future version). The pieces I have are "outlined", the pieces I am currently targeting are in bold.

http://www.nexusarcanus.net/wow/sham...8_personal.ods