I'm resto. For my spec and gear, magma totem ticks are not only bigger than searing totem ticks, each tick is more damage than the fire nova totem explosion. I still keep searing totem on my action bar as a modifier macro (shares a button with fire elemental totem) for rare occasions when the magma totem gcd or range is an issue.

True for some fights, irrelevant on others. Also dependant on how good your tanks TPS is.

Not really relevant though, as Searing is better for Elemental because of it´s DPCT.

I rerolled a shaman and am eager to try out some resto pvp at 80...but why is it that I see many builds without the imp hw to reduce cast time? Is lhw our new primary heal due to its glyph? I always thought that HW was more efficient, and now that AA accounts for ineffective healing, the overhealing from HW could be a good thing.

Could someone just explain why lhw>hw or is it a matter of personal preference? And if I do drop 5 pts into the imp hw, shouldnt I pick up at least 1 pt into healing way?

Thanks for any input

In my opinion, solely from a PvP standpoint, casting HW leaves you hanging out there with a cast time that just begs to get interrupted and lock you out from all nature spells for several seconds. If you do almost all your healing with riptide and hasted LHW, those <.9 second heals are going to be a lot tougher to interrupt for your opponents, as well as providing steadier healing for whoever is being focused on.

I searched extensively for an answer to this and came up empty handed: does anyone know if and/or how the threat reduction stacks when combining the new spirit weapons talent with elemental precision? Assuming threat reduction works like it did in TBC, I would assume it reduces threat to .49 ( .7 * .7) but I'm not sure if they've changed the way that threat reduction stacks.

(Background: I wish that I always ran with competent tanks who always generate more threat than I could ever need, but I regularly find myself pulling aggro or needing to hold back. The loss of the elemental talents needed to get spirit weapons results in less than 1% damage reduction which, to me, may be worth it.)

Threat reductions are multiplicative.

Starting with 100% threat, you reduce it by 30% to 70%. Then reduce that by 30% to get 49%. So yes, you are correct in how the reduction works (this is so it's nigh impossible to hit 0% threat)

I'm starting out as a fresh lvl80 resto shaman atm and was wondering if there are any stats I should aim for to maintain enough mana regen in a 25man raid?

Resto question: is there ever too much use for throwing up just a straight up Healing Wave? When I'm raid healing, I'm mainly focusing on keeping ES on a tank and casting chain heal and riptide as needed, and in five mans ES+riptide+LHW seem to be enough.

Yet I feel like I'm really missing something by not using healing wave. Tell me about it.

When raid healing the times for healing wave will be useful will be rare. Its mostly effective when healing a tank. Healing wave is slightly more efficient than LHW even with es on target (and with lhw glyph) so if speed isn't an issue and there is someone in the raid who is very low on health HW can be useful but these situations are rare. Basically use CH assuming you will get at least 1 jump, or If cast time is important use RT or LHW. If you can afford to take a little longer and won't be overhealing by a large amount use HW

This is not a unanimous position. When hasted with Tidal Waves, LHW and HW are effectively the same cast time, since both are limited by global cooldown. Sometimes landing your heal faster and having to wait for the gcd is worth it, but HW is more powerful than LHW. Bear in mind that you will use up mana faster with the larger heal. However, with 5/5 Tidal Waves, if you use Riptide and Chain Heal enough to keep all your wave spells hasted, I would say the exact opposite of Daidalos. Outside of pvp, lesser healing wave is not as useful as healing wave.

Edit: Hey, not fair! You edited your post to acknowledge the situational strengths of Healing Wave, so now it looks like I'm taking position against a straw man argument. I'll respond in kind, by admitting that if you can top of a target with Lesser Healing Wave, then Healing Wave isn't a stronger heal, since all that extra is overheal. The upcoming 3.1 AA change will make overheal less bad, but the upcoming 3.1 mana regeneration will make overheal worse.

Having both Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave available gives the same sort of flexibility to us that we had with the old downranking mechanic. I can choose to spend less mana, and heal for less. The smaller heal is less efficient both in terms of hpm and hps, unless that's all the healing needed -- then it's more hpm and the same hps.

When you say raid healing though i assume you're talking mostly about 25-man raids; for 10-man raids I find plenty of opportunity to use HW (and I glyph it...) Fights like KT you *want* people spread out so CH not really usable, won't even bounce on melee if they're spaced correctly; and the damage from Frostbolt volleys let alone iceblocks is enough that RT - HW - HW won't be a lot of overheal, AA will find a target, and you don't have to waste mana and globals healing yourself if glyphed. In terms of mana efficiency as well,

Of course if you are running 25-mans you will often find your would-be HW targets covered by other healers.