Since resto will probably already grab Ancestral Knowledge and Thundering Strikes, I think it would be a good idea to grab Shamanistic Focus. Shocks could provide a few hundred dps that largely pays for itself from JoW (2% max mana).

This would also open the possibility to grab Elemental Focus if you sacrifice some resto talents (example build)

On Tidal Waves, you do not need 5 points if you plan on rare use of LHW or HW. At some percentage short of 100% you should be able to keep the next cast hasted almost all the time.

I was thinking the exact same thing about Tidal Waves. My guess would have been that 4/5 points should be enough, maybe even 3/5 could do the trick, depending on how often such an emergency Healing Wave is "necessary" on average.

Yes I had replishment almost the entire time (not sure of the mechanism, seems to be a little odd). And I regemmed before testing

Yellow- int, blur int/mp5, red SP/mp5

Although I agree that the gain from Totemic Focus is close to nothing, I still don't see why anyone prefers Impr HW over this talent. The statement above is not really convincing me either, as there are no arguments. I've been doing without IHW for around 6 to 7 months now and I've never missed it. All situations in which the MT needed quick healing have been resolved with either NS heals or LHW. In the cases where this was needed, the main goal was to get heals on the MT asap. Considering LHW without TW is still quicker than TW HW's, I see no reason to use HW over LHW for the 'oh shit' moments. You want healing on the tank fast, not big heals slowly. For the latter part you have already brought in MT healers.

If there is a raid which will require me to MT heal, I will simply respec. I have always respecced to fit the fights needed (for example impr GW when learning Archimonde instead of the standard 8/0/53). However, when I prepare a raid, I know pretty well what role I will be playing and respec accordingly. As such I can't see how one can not know what kind of role you play in a raid (unless you're talking about world first kills).

Agreed if we only look at the HPS output. But I was arguing the case of not taking TW at all. In a situation where your tanks health is dropping, you'd want heals on him fast. Riptide is instant cast heal, which is thus the fastest. Only NS would be a better choice here. Only in the case of a MT healer dying and the raidleader putting a resto shaman on MT to take over, can I see the benefit of taking TW over other talents. Or at least for the full 5 talent points. At such a time you'd want to be able to keep casting heals straight away. But in this logic, one would best served with Healing Way as well for these moments.

TW is better than Healing Way because Healing way gives +18% healing only to healing wave with 3 points while TW gives 20% without the need of stacking it, it increases also LHW healing output AND if you use CH you will cast ever faster after. What else?!
And if riptide gets added to TW it will be even better

Praetorian listed arguments few pages ago. Cut the crap already, even in Sunwell shamans are not chain heal bots. And WoTLK raiding will be different.

I was looking over at the Shaman beta boards and it seems the -threat talents have become pretty much worthless(In PvE I might add, the dispel reduction is always handy in PvP). And with the 5-minute totems, totemic focus lost much of it's appeal aswell. So I myself was thinking about speccing something like this.

Level 70:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Level 80:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It probably depends heavily on your playstye, but Shamanistic Focus isn't looking bad to me now. 45% mana reduction in shocks for a single point could potentially be quite a saving in mana for content where you aren't at full healing stretch and are looking to contribute in other ways.

I currently put in a fair amount of shock damage along the way, and one of my concerns has been that with the new tightness on mana my hybrid shocking would have to fall by the wayside because even if I have the GCDs spare, I can't afford to soak up mana I may need for healing later in the fight. Taking 45% off that cost makes throwing a few shocks look a lot more attractive.
Certainly in the early days until you start to hit brick-wall content where you must be purely heal optimised, it looks like a talent that might give good value.

Healing Way would probably benefit from a change to allow it to build charges on something else, maybe CH or LHW/Riptide, so you could charge it up for dropping healbombs without having to drop 3 big Healing Waves in the process. As it is I think we're seeing it drop out of a lot of builds, I know it's going to drop from mine.

Tidal Waves does seem like one of those rare talents where we could get away with less than the maximum number of points. If we're only throwin HW/LHW on occasion then less than 100% proc chance isn't going to cause us a problem. Although I'm assuming that a) the buff works like Natures Swiftness and stays up until consumed, and b) Those LHW/HW heal buffs it gives are only to the hasted heals and not to all casts.

About oils.

Our Earthliving Weapon rank 5 gives us 110 healing power or 206 old addheal (not even counting the hot proc). That is about 95 itemstatpoints, which could otherwise be spend on 95 int or 37 mp5. This is more than twice the stats any oil available on 70 could give.

From a stat point view, earthliving is by far the mightiest enchant you can put on your weapon as a healer, and in turn one should kick out every single spell power gem and regem for int everywhere.

Can Wind shock proc judgement of wisdom? If it can then there is interesting mana gain mehcanic.
Wind shock cost 8% base mana or 4396 * 0.08 = 352mana. Judegement of wisdom give 2% of mana pool. You need 17600mana pool that this spell is free. If you get shamanis focus talent then with 17600 mana pool you gain 45% of 352 per shock or 158mana. This is 132mp5 if used every CD. Off-course you can't use it every CD but every mana drop do help.
Judgement of wisdom say: "granting attacks and spells used against the judged enemy a chance to restore 2% of maximum mana to the attacker". There is no have to deal damage statement and if it's not proc now then it could be bug.

There is a fine line between specialized and one dimensional. Most of us believe trading small amounts of mp5 for versatility is a net gain, you do not. If this works for you and your raid, all well and good, but essentially we are re-hashing the Boars speed vs. Vitality argument.

Raid comps, play styles, and skill (individual and group) can all allow for different talent builds, lets agree to disagree and move on.

Looking at your 80 spec there, I guess I'd be inclined to changing toward 3/5 in Thundering Strikes in favor of 3/3 in Elemental Weapons. Admittedly I haven't run the numbers on whether the extra 22 spellpower gained would outstrip 2% additional crit, but I tend toward liking consistency in talents anyway, so our increasing reliance on crit is freaking me out a little as it stands.

Also, I'm still unsure about Healing Way. Our guild is small, so I'm looking at it from the standpoint of overall utility in 10 mans. As one of two healers in our runs, sometimes I'm called upon to fill roles on the fly that shamans aren't ideally suited.

Yeah ELW is very nice, I was just trying to max out mana regen.

So you're admitting you are a terrible healer. Grats. Why do you even bother reading or posting in a thread about your spec when you are the stereotypical bad shaman who may as well have every key on his keyboard bound to Chain Heal as you faceroll your way through encounters? If you are healing right now, in 2.4, in Sunwell, BT, or elsewhere, and you are only casting Chain Heal all the time, then you're doing it wrong. And that's before all the various buffs and synergies for LHW and HW in 3.0. Sometimes only one person needs healing. Sometimes someone needs healing ASAP and not 2.5 seconds from now. Countless situations arise where Chain Heal is simply the wrong spell to cast. If you can't see them, then that's your problem, but you also shouldn't be giving your opinion of talents and class changes when you are essentially a handicapped player.

Regarding the laughable comment of "why would I Riptide when I can LHW for more," here's a hint: You can't cast a LHW while moving. Sometimes people need to be healed while you are moving. If you can afford to channel a 1.5sec heal on them, then of course you should do it. But you can't always do that.

In terms of gearing, its easier to make up 22 spell power, than it is to get 2% crit. That would be my reasoning to get the additional crit over maxing Elemental Weapons.

I'm also in a small guild who won't be raiding 25 man's come LK, and will also be one of two healers. As such, unless they take a look at how HWay currently functions, I can't see the use in dropping three points into it. It simply drops off too early to maintain the stack (given the down-ranking change) in most situations I've encountered.

Pre-wotlk, it was almost a must have, now I'm not seeing it in any proposed build.

I am surprised anyone would think tidal waves is a bad talent. I can think of many times where a 1.5 second HW is handy. Kale if tank needs fast assistance or splash from a portal maybe a lack of a decurse or aoe + portal + shadowbolt combo. Felmyst 1.5 second HW on encapsulate person. Twins double or even single sheer.

I have been running ptr with 3 in tidal waves its usually enough but in places where you need fast single target heals 4-5 points would make a large difference.

Personally I have found little use of riptide it is ok for moving but with a 6sec GCD you will only probably get to use it once per movement. I think it needs altered in some way maybe make it proc healing way or even instantly consume an earth shield (partial or full).

Due to EF + JoW, you'd need around ~41% critical to start saving mana on Chain Heal against equal level mobs (against higher level mobs, your lack of spell hit would cripple the strategy).

If you use Healing Wave, you'd need less spell critical (HW costs more) and LHW would require more spell critical.

Not sure this is a very helpful response. In BC, Resto Shaman generally run about 85/15 CH/LHW. This is not due to a lack of skill, but rather as a result of understanding the mechanics of both Shaman and other healers. For a BC-era Shaman, the only real reason to take Healing Way/IHW is because you can - the talent trees don't offer much better choices - coupled with the fact that you may at times want to heal in a 5-man.

I don't believe this is true of a WotLK-era Shaman. A primarily CH strategy just doesn't seem workable when stacked up against Beacon of Light and Circle of Healing. Which is why I'm very skeptical about the "Chain Heal all the time" Resto builds - I can't see any raid leader taking a Resto Shaman based on Chain Heal in WotLK. If all those HW/LHW talents are as bad as people believe them to be, the problem with Resto Shaman isn't that they have some weak heals - it's that they're completely worthless as healers when stacked up against the competition.

I think you are missing the reduced cost of the shock from Shamanistic Focus and Convection. That's the part that makes the whole thing attractive. The shock originally costs 17/18% base mana, gets -45% and -10% cost, then procs 2% max mana returned from Judgement of Wisdom.

Also, you can't ignore the dps contribution. It might be odd to expect dps from a healer, but it's far from a trivial amount of dps. A raid with 8 healers doing 0 damage can easily be outperformed by a raid with 10 healers all doing 25% as much dps as a "standard" dps.

Constructive? Well placed arguments? I am amazed to see such a response from someone in EJ. In what way is this usefull to the discussion? Please try and keep it on topic, no need in getting personal.

Please reread my posts. You'll see that I never said a shaman should always use CH, but that I prefer LHW over HW as HW is too slow and inefficient and big heals are the trademark of other healers, not Resto Shamans. As such I find Impr Healing Wave useless as 2.5 seconds is too close to 3.0 seconds. Like you say, someone needs healing ASAP, thus LHW. Why use HW here when it has the same casting time as CH??? You'd want FAST heals, 2.5 is not fast.

Like I've said, I see them. But seeing as Tidal Waved HW's are still slower than a normal LHW, I see no reason to take the talent. Why spend 10 talent points on Heals which are still slower than other base heals which are faster. I agree sometimes you want to heal one person quickly, but using HW is not being quick. This is plain logic and numbers here. There is no handicap here, just numbers. Which from what I thought this entire forum was about: reasoning, logic, arguments.

Erm I never said that. If you're going to quote me, at least do it with what I say. To quote myself in a page back on the topic of quick MT heals.

"This is true, but in all reality wouldn't NS > HW function much better here? Or even a Riptide for that matter? Fast heals are absolutely a handy way of healing through tricky times or simply bad pulls when learning bosses. But if it's purely quick heals on the MT you want, you'd still be better of with a Riptide or LHW with the EaS glyph in terms of speed and getting heals on the tank. In the end this is what you want, to give the MT healers some room to breath.

Next time please leave personal frustrations at home instead of venting them on me.

Also
Aye agreed, cheers for the discussion folks. Last post for me, done with this discussion.

I'm sorry I don't have better examples, but I remember back before the Azgalor Rain of Fire nerf, I used to raid-heal using Healing Wave primarily. People are always running in random directions and Chain Heal doesn't really bounce nor top anyone off. In that situation I found Healing Wave to be the ideal spell to hit someone afflicted by the rain of fire debuff, since it took 2.5 seconds while two LHWs would cost 3.0 seconds, and a single LHW was not guaranteed to save the person's life.

Another example would be Illidari Council - where people are taking damage in chunks of around 4-5k each, because that's how much the AOE stuff hits for, and the heals are not really time critical since they should have moved out of those AOEs quickly. Reactive Healing Wave in that situation is a solid (although not always best) choice to raid-heal with.

Most importantly, Ribs is forgetting that Tidal Waves affects LHW as well, reducing its cast time and GCD significantly. Even if you never use HW and don't have IHW, 3/5 in Tidal Waves will still give you an excellent emergency heal.

And for the record: I agree that Healing Way is pretty much a junk talent now, but I don't think anyone should be taking Totemic Focus over IHW, because TW'd IHWs have their place in 5 and 10 mans, if not 25mans, and Totemic Focus is total junk now.

Absolutely, Riptide is something to use when you need to heal on the move. But other healers all have instant cast healing spells without burning their 51-pt talent on it. If a 51-pt talent is situational, it needs to have a little more kick.

Riptide heals for too little to waste the GCD on it. It's pointless to include in a regular rotation. If I cast it as an emergency spell, i'm 3 seconds away from landing my next LWH (or 4 seconds for CH/HW). If someone is in an emergency, will 1900 from Riptide likely to keep them up for 3 seconds?