torsdag den 19. januar 2012

Restoration shaman guide as of 4.3 - Dragon Soul.

Restoration shaman guide as of 4.3 - Dragon Soul.
I will in this guide cover spec and stats (as seen from my point of view).

Talents:
The "cookie cutter" spec for the vast majority of bosses http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhZbhZfGbMsbcRsd without Improved Cleanse Spirit and the reason for that is the only bosses where the talent is needed is to some extend on Warlord Zon'ozz, Hagara the Stormbinder and Spine of Deathwing. Furthermore, in a 25man environment you should talk to your fellow healers about who loses the least on the encounter by grabbing dispel. However, shamans is usually a strong choice for dispelling since we "mainly" choose to go 1/2 Ancestral Resolve in order to grab Improved Cleanse Spirit, but we still lose 5% damage reduction while casting. Some people still swear allegiance to http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhZbhMZfGbMsbcosd:M for "Ancestral Swiftness", but it is a wasted talent on the vast majority of encounters perhaps except on Hagara depending on your tactic, and I will say that "Telluric Currents" is amazing on Hagara so I wouldn't pick "Ancestral Swiftness" anyway due to Hagara's 100% extra damage taken in which you can gain a substantial amount of mana.

Glyphs:
Prime:  I've been running with "Glyph of Earthliving Weapon", "Glyph of Riptide" and "Glyph of Water Shield" with a chunk of the community going for "Glyph of Earth Shield" instead of "Glyph of Water Shield", but my logic tells me that "Glyph of Water Shield" is overall a better choice and let me elaborate on that: Earth Shield does little overhealing and glyphing it increases its efficiency with is a direct "Healing pr. mana" increase, however, it is an increase on one target plus you will usually have a druid running with "Lifebloom" in him along with a beacon so it does increase your healing ever so slightly, but it just adds more overhealing to your fellow healers. Now, "Glyph of Water Shield" grants me an extra 177mp5 in combat and that does not seem like a massive increase in fact it is 2124 extra mana pr. min.. Nonetheless, since the average fight lasts 5-12minutes it is an additional gain of anywhere from 10kish to 25kish extra mana pr. fight, which on progression fights where your mana is limited can be the GHW or Healing Rain which keeps the tank or a couple of raid members alive the last 5 seconds and making it a kill. What I am trying to say is that "Glyph of Earth Shield" is an increase on one target whereas "Glyph of Water Shield" grants the mana to toss out a heal on the entire raid, and thereby in my eyes being a better choice in terms of mana (Maybe except on "Yor'Sahj the Unsleeping" due to the mechanics of the fight). 

Major: 
There isn't much to discuss about these glyphs go with "Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem" since you will get a minor cooldown for yourself which can be quite beneficial and might save your ass. "Glyph of Chain Heal" if you are doing 25man then it is a must have, and finally "Glyph of Healing Stream Totem". Some might argue "But what about Glyph of Healing Wave?" in short - It is worthless, it might be mana neutral, but check your logs and see how many times you have been casting Healing Wave during the encounter and if it is more than 10 you are doing it wrong and this is why:  It heals for 10-11000 depending on gear, and crits for 21-23000 along with the "Ancestral Awakening" with adds 6-8000, but in the vast majority of cases you will be better of casting a GHW which is 30-35000 hits and 65-80.000 crits, and with our current health pools a Greater Healing Wave will most likely be the best choice in 98,54% of the time if you talk single target heals (Unless you are completely  out of mana) and beside that GHW costs around 3,5 times more mana than a HW it is the way to go. If you consider healing a person from 90-95% HP to full, and the person isn't a tank and it is a low damage phase, just stop and let the passive healing like Healing Rain, Earthliving, Wild Growth, Circle of Healing, Healing Stream do the job and spend your time casting a Lightning Bolt instead.

Stats:
Intellect is king as always since it increases your mana pool, spell power and is making your heals more potent.

Spirit, in Dragon Soul spirit has been my main secondary stat due to I am always in need of more mana since heavy use of GHW, Healing Rain has been required, but also because it also makes your "Mana Tide Totem" give more mana to you, but also to your fellow healers, which always is nice. The "rule of thumb" for spirit is "Did you have mana left the first time you killed the boss? If no when were you oom? At 2, 5 or 10% ? How much overhealing did you do and could you have weaved in a few more Lightning Bolts? If the answers is: No, 10% and no then you need more spirit or using your heals differently, but if you had mana left and it was above 5% then how many people died which you could have saved and how much healing did you do compared to the other healers? About equal, a little behind or several thousand HPs behind? Because there is a lot of factors varying in. As in general you want as much spirit as possible maybe except for a few encounters.

Mastery has been the stat I have stacked, after spirit, since Firelands because it is amazing for progress where mana will be short and people will be smashed below 70% HP quite often. In short it increases your heals HPM when the shit hits the fan and who doesn't love to see the +100.000 GHW crits? And it increases the potency of all your main healing spells like Greater Healing Wave, Chain Heal, Healing Rain, Earthliving and Riptide. In short - You want it !

Haste is from what I see on forums highly overrated at least when you talk heroic mode raiding unless you are massively overgearing the content, and this is why: Haste only affects the cast time on GHW, CH, HR, HW and LB outside the various haste breakpoints, but since HW and GHW usually is cast with Tidal Waves up and Healing Rain is such a short cast anyway it requires a huge amount to get the cast just 0,1 sec down, so basically it "only" buffs Chain Heal and yes, you will be able to cast a Lightning Bolt faster, but it isn't worth building your healing around. Now, I am not saying that haste isn't a good stat, but what I am saying is that outside the breakpoints for Riptide, Earthliving and Healing Rain the increase compared to e.g. mastery is really low.

Crit is from my perspective way to random, I know some people adores it but it is way to random for my taste, and furthermore mastery will yield you a better result and a more average result compared to crit.

In short: Int > spirit > haste (916 (740) or (1268 (1130) with 4-set bonus) > mastery > crit >  haste.

Numbers:
If you are stepping into heroic Dragon Soul I would highly suggest that you aim for 916 haste in order to get an extra tick on earthliving  (780 for goblins) and then go for as much sprit and mastery as possible. However, when you get your 4th piece of t13 I would suggest for at least Ultraxion, Spine of Deathwing and Madness of Deathwing that you adjusts your haste.
Breakpoints:
 Healing Rain                          Earthliving                                           Glyphed Riptide:
 % you get an extra tick    % you get an extra tick                  % you get an extra tick   
    10%                                       12,5%                                                         
    30%                                       37,5%                                                          
    50%                                       62,5%                                                50%
                                                                          (Only breakpoint which matters here,
                                                                       since you already got the first covered)

The percentages is unbuffed, but since Heroism / Bloodlust grants you 30% haste and so does "Spiritwalker's Grace" with 4-set you will see around a 20-25% uptime of a given fight, if you use your CD wise, which makes me suggest that when you get t13 4-piece you jump up to 1268 haste (1131 for goblins, leaves me at 50,04% with Bloodlust) (I might be slightly inaccurate by a few rating, but you can test it yourself - If you reach 50% haste with +5% haste from totem and either Heroism / Bloodlust / 4-set bonus running you got it) which means that when you are under the influence of Lust/Hero/Time and 4-piece bonus your Healing Rain and your Riptide will get more ticks, and thereby be "free" extra healing, whenever you need to increase the amount of HPs due to heavy damage phases.


//Any spelling mistakes and horrendous grammar violations is free.

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