onsdag den 21. marts 2012

Revised restoration shaman guide as of 4.3.3


Revised restoration shaman guide as of 4.3.3
After the nerfs to Dragon Soul and the amount of gear which people have access to currently I’ve come to the conclusion that I should update / revise my guide, since it is somewhat “not up to date” – So here goes.
Now, I am going to make some assumptions 1) You got 4-set, 2) Your ilvl is somewhere around 390+ and you are currently progressing between Hagara HM to Spine HM.

If you have read my first 4.3 guide you will notice a lot of similarities, however, it is mainly due to the “basics” is more or less the same.

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.  

If you are using Ancestral Swiftness find the nearest trainer and respec.


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.
Added:
People who advocate reforging all your spirit to something else - ignore them, spirit is still a good stat and your fellow healers will also love you for Tide. However, pushing +4000 spirit is overkill, and when you grab a hold of "Heart of the Unliving" you should perhaps consider reforging some of your spirit to e.g. crit. Nonetheless, there is no  "rule of thumb" when it comes to reforging as resto shaman - it is all about playstyle, spell selection, healing combination and the boss.

Edited secondary stats - mastery, haste and crit:
Crit
was in my previous guide labeled as "too random", however, with the amount of gear which people should have at this point, which leads to the increased throughput by every healer on your team, decreased tank damage due to gear (There is still mechanics which makes mastery go "boooja") I've more or less drawn the conclusion that crit is your new best buddy.
Now, let me explain: For Ultraxion, Warmaster Blackhorn, Spine of Deathwing and Madness of Deathwing your top healing spells should be Healing Rain, Earthliving, Chain Heal, Riptide and Greater Healing Wave (random order). While mastery boots all of these heals, when the HP pool gets lowered it will "less lower" now due to nerfs, more gear on discipline priests, holy paladins which generates more absorbs, which means that the raid takes less damage. Furthermore, with better gear your HP will increase and thereby the incoming damage will reduce your HP pool by a less percentage than previously. You might say "But this is so such a tiny amount, mastery is still king!" - Sure, mastery is still good and a lifesaver, however, the value of it is slightly lower than it was previously.
Now, haste is from my point of view still a suboptimal way since it only grants a benefit to HW, HS, GHW and CH and with Tidal Waves the increase is hardly noticeable, which means that outside the breakpoints of Riptide, Healing Rain and Earthliving I wouldn't encourage people to aim for haste.
This leaves me with suggesting to go with crit after you have reached 1268 (1130 goblin) haste, in order to reach 50% haste during Heroism/Timewarp/Bloodlust and your  4-set, because it will grant a increase to all your spells, and yes - in some situations it will be downright overhealing, however, when people aren't getting smashed below 65ish% they do not receive the full benefit from mastery, whereas they will gain the full benefit of crit (unless it is a GHW, but then again this will create more Ancestral Awakening procs), and it will increase your mana regn. ever so slightly from "Resurgence".  

TLDR:
In short: Int > spirit (read the Added part) > haste(1268 (1130) with 4-set bonus) > crit > mastery > 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.

I've added some of the kills which I have frapsed: 
Ultraxion:                   
   



 Spine of Deathwing: 


 

Madness of Deathwing: In which I play like garbage.









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