The easiest way to increase chain heal effectiveness is to make sure you are healing people who are close to other people. Also if there is no reason for them to be spread out be vocal and get them to group up. Melee is always great to heal since they are so close to together, however mileage with casters can vary greatly depending on the fight. Be aware of raid position as well as who is low and it should increase your effectiveness. If its a single target who isn't close to other or others or are hurt thats the ideal situation for a druid or another healer to heal. I'm not saying you should let people die because you should only heal groups, but assuming your other healers are on the ball let each class play to its strengths.

Wallix: The difference between a good Shaman Healer and an exceptional Shaman healer is the following (IMHO of course):
A good Shaman Healer is constantly on the lookout for people who have taken damage and heals them.
An exceptional Shaman Healer knows who will take damage and starts casting before they take any or a lot of damage.

Now, much of knowing when people will take damage is:
1) experience and
2) knowing encounters.

A lot of experience is simply a question of time, but you can gain a lot more experience if you analyze the situations that occur in a raid, your actions/reactions (or the missing of the same) and remembering that stuff. Knowing encounters is also a question of time (the more you do an encounter, the better you know what exactly can and will happen), but also a lot of analyzing what happens and your reaction to the same.

For example, taking the Illidan fight. I know exactly when he will cast the Flame Burst during the Demon Phase (countdown from BigWigs). This means I will start casting on a person BEFORE the Flame Burst comes, so that it hits directly after the Flame Burst. In comparison to a Shaman who heals reactively, I get out two heals in the time he gets out one (in this situation). I am usually assigned as a cross healer in phase 3-5 (Parasites + Agonizing Flames). Healing Agonizing Flames is another situation where you can see the difference between a good Shaman and an exceptional Shaman. I know when the Agonizing Flames will tick, allowing me to precast the heals, and make them land directly after the Agonizing Flames ticks.

There are similar things in many boss fights (Arcane Buffet on Kalecgos for example).

Healing on trash is another area where you can see huge differences between similarly equipped Shamans. The important part on trash is to remember that you can usually regen a bit between trash groups - don't conserve Mana. Constantly cast heals (and if no one is taking damage, chain heal one of the tanks). Extremelny important on trash healing (but also useful for many boss abilities): Quickly seeing if someone has aggro. If anyone who is not a tank has aggro, I immediately start healing him - before he has taken any damage. If he does take damage (which on a non-tank is usually quite a lot very quickly), my heals are already incoming, meaning I get in 2-3 Chain Heals before someone who only heals reactively can get his first heal off (at which time the person usually no longer has aggro or is dead).

In summary: Reactive healing is good. Proactive healing is what separates the exceptional from the good.

The haste gear section of the Resto Shaman wiki is overdue for an udpate. It was written before gear in Sunwell was available. Appreciate your feedback on the sets below.

Haste set: chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.3.a

2194 healing
136 mp5 while casting
488 haste rating (31% haste)
15.2% spell crit (including talents)
8,377 hit points unbuffed (Tauren)
10,283 mana unbuffed

NOTE: If leatherworker use [Sun-Drenched Scale Chestguard]

It would reduce your Healing Wave and Chain Heal to a 1.9 second cast and Lesser Healing Wave to 1.14 seconds.

This is while keeping your 4-piece Tier 6 bonus and not gemming exclusively for haste. For example, the [Sunglow Vest] is assumed to also be part of your normal healing gear and gemmed for +healing rather than spell haste. Let me know if you would change any items, gems or enchants and then I'll update the wiki.
========================
Here's a template for the best in slot items: chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.3.a

	Unbuffed	Buffed
Healing	2591	2624
Mp5	295.5	377.5
Haste	331 rating (21%)	331 rating (21%)
Spell Crit (with talents)	15.3%	16.7%
Hit points (Tauren)	9,039	10,687
Mana	10,463	12,113

Alchemist's Stone valued at 16 mp5 and Memento at 20 mp5. Water shield = 50 mp5 and Mana Spring = 62.5 mp5
+ Raid buffs include Intellect (+40), Wisdom (41 mp5), Mark (+14), Kings (+10%), Fortitude (+79), Flask (25 mp5), Oil (16 mp5)

It would reduce your Healing Wave and Chain Heal to 2.06 seconds and Lesser Healing Wave to 1.23 seconds.
I want to include the links to the character developer because it will allow people to easily change a few items (for example if they are an enchanter or leatherworker) and see the results.

EDIT: Removed [Brutal Gladiator's Blade of Alacrity]. It was never added with the S4 gear.
EDIT: Fixed helm in haste set

I can´t check it right now, but I believe the S4 "Haste Weapons" were available on the PTR but never made it to Live-Servers.

Since [Crystal Spire of Karabor] is used in the healing set wouldn't you use [Hammer of Sanctification] gemmed for haste?

[Hammer of Sanctification] w/ [Quick Lionseye] vs [Dark Blessing]:
+19 stam
+6 int
+3 haste
+119 healing
+9 mp5

Although [Dark Blessing] is a much cheaper solution.

I just checked. You're correct. They are not available from the vendor. I'll edit the original post. Thanks for catching.

Yes, that's a great option and why I want to have links to the character developer page so people can easily customize a paper doll.

I'd grab what you can for now. You can almost outfit yourself in badge gear entirely minus a couple of slots in a relatively short amount of time.

As for the s4 weapons, it's my understanding that they'll be implemented in 2.4.3 when the weapon swap while casting breaks your cast thing goes in.

Hello, i've read all the tc about shaman, but a got a question:

It's bettere socketting 10 haste or 22 heal?

10 haste are better than heal? I'm seeing a lor of shammy using that type of gem on sw drops, i don't know if it's better 10 haste or 22 heal.........

Can some one explain exactly what the talent "Purification" does. I am now confused.


is it 10% more of the heal when it lands or is it 10% more healing?

Thanks

It increases the amount your healing spells heal for by 10%. So if you heal for 3000 without it, it becomes 3300 with 5/5 purification. Unaffected by your +heal.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by unaffected by your plus heal, but to clarify purification is applied after your +healing is taken into account. I think you mean purification does not affect +heal not the other way around.

So lets say your base healing wave heals for 2285 and you have 2000+ healing but 0 points in purification.
the amount you heal for would be
(2285 + (2000 * (3/3.5)) = 3999.28
with 5/5 purification
(2285 + (2000 * (3/3.5)) *1.1 = 4399

So as you can see since multiplcation is distributive you can see that the 1.1 applies to your amount of plus heal as well as the base amount of the spell.

I’ve been considering speccing 8-12-41 from 8/0/53. Is it worth giving up Nature's Guardian, Healing grace and Healing way for the extra dps?

I have a Resto Druid (Not a Shaman yet although I'm working on it) and I noticed in the section titled "3. Who should I Earth Shield" that you incorrectly said that Moonkin Druids have no pushback resistance. Celestial Focus, a Tier 4 talent for Balance Druids gives a 70% pushback resistance for the Wrath spell with a 3 talent point investment.

As I raid as a Tree, I'm not sure if Moonkins spec into this talent for raids, but I thought it was important to put it out there anyways.

Moonkin will generally be using Starfire, which has no pushback resistance. Thusly, the entry is correct.

For PVE, no.
For BG's, I would say yes, because you are alone alot.
For Arenas, I think its a matter of sytle and which arena brackets you are focused on...2's I would guess yes, 5's probably not.

I would say that depends on how much you value Elemental Warding and Concussion/Convection over Nature's Guardian and Healing Way. The 0-12-49 spec is a far more versatile build than 8-12-41.

Are you sure? Did you try to do this in combat?

Yep - I was in BT half an hour ago - seems to work fine.

The only thing that sucks, is the fact that your cast is interrupted if you try to use another spell before the actual has ended. But as long as you stay at the same spell, everything works fine...

Try:
This won't swap in the relic if the CGD is on. You can use any spell that has only global cooldown instead of track fish, and can use item:12345 (the itemid) instead of entering the full name of the item, if you are running out of characters.

Using the macro in combat isn't working for me, equipping the totem forces the global.

I know it might not be the best place to ask however I need some advice on my gear. I recently reroll'd Resto Shaman to help my guild with SWP (we just started Kalecgos). As for SWP entry gear goes: what's the best combination of T6 items? Chest/Shoulders/Head and T6 legs with Teron gloves or maybe Kaz'rogal legs with T6 gloves? I've read all Shaman related topics available here on EJ forums and I couldn't get straight answer. TIA for your advice ^_^

Read the Resto shaman wiki again.