The bug for the glyph listed above has been fixed. The buff disappears when you switch back to resto. I am not certain on which patch this came but I think it was the mini patch after 3.2.

I am in a 10 man casual guild that just moved into ToC (first two bosses down and working on faction champions). We run a three healer setup (resto druid, holy pally and myself). We have what I consider a non-standard raid makeup (two tanks, 3 healers and 5 ranged dps) in that we have zero melee dps.
During Naxx I exclusively ran a ch spam build. When we moved into Ulduar and I found the fights having the raid needing to be at greater than 10 yards for fights I swapped to a high int/riptide/lhw build (which I found incredibly effective). After losing the increased haste on lhw after patch 3.2, I experimented and found riptide/hw worked for me. Even with the large overhealing I don't have mana issues due to constant replenishment and a large mana pool.
Everything I have been reading shows shaman shifting to haste/ch builds. Not having melee dps to bounce to, I am wondering if in my situation the haste/ch shift is the best way to go. In my current build I buff to about 2700 sp, 50% crit, 28k mana pool and my hw hits for 12k/18k on average.
Any insight from more experienced folks would be greatly appreciated.

We've not succeeded with the heroic twin valks, but our normal mode tactic was to force the hunters to stand in the wrong group....

hunter with light standing in group that's dark
hunter with dark standing in group with light.

This hunters' job includes grabbing balls that would hurt the near group.

This was normal 25man, not heroic. Heroic is still just out of reach.

Use more healers. The enrage timer is so completely trivial on twins 25 that you can easily use 8 healers and still kill them with 45s-1m left on enrage. This does need dps that can swap to shields quick enough to interupt heals, but that should be a given if you are working on this encounter.

You should have no mana problems on this fight at all, and I would certainly never break 4T8 on it. With enough crit and haste you should be getting 650 mp5 or more form IWS procs due to all the chain healing you are doing. You can also use the -mana to CH totem for more longevity, if your crit is not high enough to give you enough regen on its own.

Really though it's just a fight that greatly benefits from the stability added healing brings. If you can do something like 2 paladins for the tanks with cross beacons, any combination of 4 priests/trees (Ideally more trees, the more the better for this fight) and then 2 shaman you will be fine. Make sure to bounce chains from the person with Touch of Light or Touch of Darkness so that you get as much effect out of your big first chain hop as possible.

You should not have to dodge orbs if your goalies are doing their jobs correctly.

I've been curious about how much resto shaman spells scale with spell power
(ie: chainheal, lesser HW, riptide, and HW)

if anyone has a spreadsheet or the math behind it I'd really like to know

[Resto] spreadsheets and calculations

You had 11 people die during the fight though?

well not changing colors on specials tends to do that to the people. As you see before special kicked in there was only 1 death. Was pretty much the same on much less sloppy kills too.

Just curious, why do you gem mp5? It's probably the worst stat to gem for regardless of class, because it doesn't scale.

It works for me and shaman_hep don't quite agree with you.

from couple weeks old raid...
Shaman Healing Equivalency Points:
1 SP = 1
1 mp5 = 1.1852 (calculated)
1 mana = 0.0077
1 Haste rating = 1.6634
1 Crit rating = 0.7213
1 INT = 0.7537 (actual)
1 INT = 1.0426 (max theoretical)

20 mana/5 gem is worth 20(1.1852)=23.704 HEP points.
34 SP gem is worth 34 HEP points.
34 Haste gem is worth 56 HEP points.
34 Crit gem is worth 24.5242 points.
20 Int gem is worth 25.6258 points.

I'm not saying you're dead wrong to be gemming mana/5(you can't really gem 100% wrong as long as you're winning fights), but your HEP reports are definitely telling you that mana/5 is still the worst gem you can use in a pure mathematical sense.

It might be worth more raw HEP points, but since it's so much more expensive on the item budget it's still outshined by your other stats.

Um, as evidenced by your healing log parse, gemming int is far better than Mp5 for you - and that's not even nearly as good as haste. If you're having mana problems as a resto shaman, you need to seriously reconsider your playstyle, as you're probably doing something horribly wrong.

Also, in your spec, you've picked up 3/3 enhancing totems at the cost of 6% more intellect for yourself. Are you sure that's a wise talent choice?

Not sure where you are reading that gemming int is better? I see it as the worst choice of all - 0.75*20hep. Well we had issues keeping up 1 of MTs on heroic 10 beasts. Rest of fights are usually easy. As for totems - we don't always get an elemental and never enhance shaman while getting +1k mana is pretty weak bonus in my opinion. Have considered changing it tho.

P.S. keep in mind we are just a casual guild

You are calculating int values off the current 'actual' return, I am calculating off the max theoretical. If you're not dropping mana tide early in the fight so you can get off two tides in a fight, you need to reconsider how you time it, as an additional ~25% mana is not something to cough at. If you're not taking advantage of clumped people to bounce a chain heal (and to get insane mana returns), you probably should reevaluate your chain heal usage. I could continue, but all this has been fleshed out in these forums before.

Your sacrifice of 6% additional intellect for bonus strength and spell power means you are dropping nearly 52.5 Mp5 worth from replenishment and tide as well as the bonus 1-2k mana. This may be wise for you group comp, but if you're having trouble keeping a reasonably geared tank up because of healer mana issues, your healing team probably needs to reconsider what sacrifices they are making to buff the raid.

Your chest should probably be enchanted with +10 stats, not +10 Mp5. 10 int is worth approximately 7 Mp5, and that's not considering the bonus stamina for survivability and the bonus SP effect from the intellect.

Consumables can also aid in your mana woes: [Flask of Distilled Wisdom] is worth about 51 Mp5 assuming full buffs - even more (~72.5?) since you're an alchemist - and [Potion of Nightmares] can be a great additional mana return, assuming you time the sleep effect well with the encounter and alert the other healer(s).

Also, you say you're in a casual guild? Do try to remember that this is elitistjerks.com, not casualraiding101.com - when you ask for help with issues, you're probably not going to get an answer that is casual friendly.

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense.

As for ej - well this is probably only thread that gives really good insights for resto shams. So won't post anymore if you think these are too obvious questions.

It's evident that you're casual, but Intellect is superior then MP5 for a number of reasons: It scales, with talents, unlike MP5 (e.g. Ancestral Knowledge, Nature's Blessing) as well as scaling with replenishment, Blessing of Kings, Water Shield, and your mana-tide totem. As it's has already been pointed out before, MP5 comes in 10MP5 gems whereas Int comes in 20 INT gems; furthermore you're taking into account the actual rather than the max-theoretical, which is probably more accurate if you claim you're hovering around OOM during fights. As for enhancing totems, your primary concern as a healer should be healing, you should only pick up talents such as enhancing totems if you have points to toss around; Flametongue totem doesn't stack with: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact. Same goes for SoE and Horn of Winter. There's no reason not to max out Ancestral Knowledge, it's not simply "+1k mana" it's much more if you read into it.

I'm not sure why I wouldn't put a purple spellpower+mp/5 gem in my blue sockets to get the socket bonus, if it comes down to 23sp/20haste vs. 17-21sp & 5mp/5. Granted, the only fight so far where I've actually felt I could use more mana, in the sense that a little playstyle change wouldn't fix it, has been Beasts25 heroic with a kill seconds before the enrage, but it's always nice to be able to spam that little extra if somebody dies or disconnects. This applies to intellect as well, though, and int has the added downside of not being a blue socket, but a yellow one, taking up the space of potential haste gems.

Though honestly, I - and I suspect most other people as well - mainly do it for that green writing, the obsessive compulsive need to fill in socket bonuses.

(I realize the post was not directed at me, but it applies, so I replied.)

If I felt mana constricted I would probably look for more crit pieces and keep gemming haste. I use [Soul of the Dead] on mana intensive fights and have no problems with close to 100% haste gems. I don't have [Meteorite Crystal] but thats a strong option too.

I can't imagine gemming for MP5. Like was mentioned earlier point for point its a decent stat but its itemization value makes it pretty useless.

I wanted to find out what the EP values for each gem are in relationship to the bonuses they provide. These EP values are based upon the TTT HEP values and may vary based upon your play style.

Gem	SP	Mp5	Haste	Crit	Int	HEP Value	HEP Value (Max value)
[Item not found!]					20	20	24
[Item not found!]		5			10	15	20
[Design: Energized Eye of Zul]		5	10			9	13
[Item not found!]	12				10	22	24
[Item not found!]		10				10	16
[Design: Potent Ametrine]	12			10		19	21
[Design: Quick King's Amber]			20			8	10
[Design: Reckless Ametrine]	12		10			16	17
[Item not found!]	12	5				17	20
[Item not found!]	23					23	23
[Design: Smooth King's Amber]				20		14	18
[Item not found!]		5		10		12	17

The HEP values per the TTT:

Stat	Min	Max
1 SP	1	1
1 mp5	1	1.6
1 Haste rating	0.4	0.5
1 Crit rating	0.7	0.9
1 INT	1	1.2

Assuming a more chain heal centric healing style the values change:

Gem	SP	Mp5	Haste	Crit	Int	HEP Value	HEP Value (Max value)
[Item not found!]					20	10	16
[Item not found!]		5			10	10	15
[Design: Energized Eye of Zul]		5	10			10	14
[Item not found!]	12				10	17	20
[Item not found!]		10				10	14
[Design: Potent Ametrine]	12			10		19	21
[Design: Quick King's Amber]			20			10	14
[Design: Reckless Ametrine]	12		10			17	19
[Item not found!]	12	5				17	19
[Item not found!]	23					23	23
[Design: Smooth King's Amber]				20		14	18
[Item not found!]		5		10		12	16

HEP values used:

stat	min	max
1 SP	1	1
1 mp5	1	1.4
1 Haste rating	0.5	0.7
1 Crit rating	0.7	0.9
1 INT	0.5	0.8

Those EP values are very very old. As with almost anything else gear related- your best bet is to run the shaman_hep and grab the lootrank link from the bottom (which covers gems).

I've noticed some shammys not speccing fo the push back reduction for pve. I've always been curious about this.

Everywhere I read, people generally say its manditory, which I can understand since we cast most all of our spells.

Do the encounteres determine its value? Such as a frozen blows hodir type aoe happening fairly often, I would assume it would be needed to cast during that, but I am just unsure on how that talent works, or if it is required.

I understand how the talent works, but have seen some reputable shams leaving it out. Whats the general consensus?

A great deal of the raidwide damage taken does not cause pushback in the first place. Most people probably drop it on the assumption that if you're getting hit by something that does cause it, you're fucked anyhow, or they just use dual spec to swap for fights that specifically need it due to unavoidable pushback.