Resto Shaman - what do I wrong?

[naudid]

In resto spec w/o any buffs besides from my own totems, my Spell Power (damage) slightly right above 8k (8398 to be exact). Lb Average crit is 11814 and the average hit is 7647. I have an 18.8% chance to crit so lets say that every 100 Lbs I HIT, 19 of them Crit. I aslo have a 17% chance to miss seeing as I have 0 hit rating in resto gear. So this means that for every 100 lbs I shoot, 17 of them will miss. So to have 100lbs hit, we will have to shoot ~120 lbs (rounded down).

Now this lets say we shoot 120 Lbs to get a base rate of %ages and then we can scale it down from there to achieve logical numbers that we should see during a raid.

It takes 168720 mana to shoot 120 lbs
Per 120 Lbs the total misses are 20.4 (round down to 20)
Per 120 Lbs the total damage of Non Crits is 619407
Per 120 Lbs the total damage of Crits is 224466
Mana gained from non crits = 247763 mana
Mana gained from crits = 897863 mana
Total Mana gained = 337549 mana
Net Mana gained = 168829 mana

Now those are the numbers base 120lbs, in order to get a good feel of what this will translate to in a raid we would have to first have a good idea of how many lbs a TC shaman shoots in an entire boss fight.

I really do not know, but lets say you shoot 30 to make the math easier. Seeing that 30 is 1/4th of 120, this here is the adjusted value.

Net Mana gained from 30lbs with ~8.4k Spellpower = 42207 mana.

Now, this is not a bad mana gain. This amounts to about 6x GWH or 4x HR. Now, with the 5% intellect buff, food buffs, flasks, and the 10% spellpower buff in raids your mana gains will only increase. However that is 30 times when you are performing a ~2.2 second cast. That equates to 66 seconds.

As far as dps goes, shooting 30lbs at ~8.4k sp in a 6-minute bossfight will net you 210967 damage done or 586 dps. Nothing to really write home about.

**Summary**
Having said all of that, if you wish go the TC route, you will get a decent amount of mana back but you will spend quite a bit of time doing it. This seems odd to me because TC seems to be designed for those who are hurting for mana in hard content but in order to make any useful gains from TC you are going to be spending quite some time casting Lbs instead of healing.

Stacking haste and going for intel chants and buffs (draconic mind/ power torrent) over spirit based ones will increase the mana you gain but will if the purpose is to save mana it seems odd to chose these over their spirit boosting counterparts.

All in all, do what you want and whatever suits you the best. If i was in dire needs for mana, I might give this a try. But in between Mana Tide, Spirit Link, Replenishment and Feral Innervates, I just really don't see shamans going oom in raids.

You could've made your math a bit easier. It seems unneccessary to me that you go up to 120LB.

You cast 100LB
You have a 17% to miss so 83LB are actually going to hit the target.
You have a 19% chance to crit, so from these 83LB, 15,77 will hit critically.

It takes 140600 mana to cast 100LB
You deal 8400 damage with hits and (should!) deal 12600 damage with crits (Hit * 1,5)
Your mana gain from 1 Hit :3360mana-1406cost=1954managain
Your mana gain from 1 crit: 5040mana-1406cost=3634mana gain
Managain from Hit * 67,23hit chance= 131367,42mana gain
Managain from Crit * 15,77crit chance=57308,18mana gain
_________________________________________________
Total mana gained: 188676 mana

Mana gained from 30 LBS: 56602,68 mana

It's quite a larger sum if you actually calculate with 150% crit damage ^_^

Now here's the awesome thing about this mana: It's free. No really. Basically the bossfights throws this mana in your face and you seem to look at it and think: "meh".
The fantastic thing about a bossfight is: There is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS a downtime in which close to 0 damage hits the group.
Either the boss encounter creates it(lets take it back to magmaws head phase), or your healing team creates it.
Especially now since the big Mana Tide nerf this talent becomes so much more powerful.

To make it a bit more "graphic" for you guys:


And a little quote

But, but - I'm a Healer

Yes, we're all healers, and so it's natural (and pretty much expected) that we get huffy at the thought of doing something other than healing. Most of us don't like doing interrupts, we hate doing the crappy kite job (or being the healer who gets to run after the other guy doing the crappy kite job), and our fingers literally twitch in response to seeing someone's health decrease by even the slightest of amount. So, how is it that using a talent like Telluric Currents can be viewed as a necessary raiding practice? How is it that I can sit here and ask a healer to cast an LB instead of a heal?

Because the choice isn't between (a) casting a heal or (b) casting a Lightning Bolt. The choice is between (a) NOT casting a heal or (b) casting a Lightning Bolt. (Oh yes, I have some Blue backup on this one)

Honestly, this is where I think that most Resto Shaman go awry with their understanding and application of Telluric Currents. (And maybe it's in part due to the fact that we're all still struggling to reconcile ourselves to the Cataclysm healing environment, after operating in the Wrath world where Always Be Casting was the golden rule). I will go so far as to suggest here that if you are a healer who, during an 8-minute fight, never makes a decision to NOT cast, then you're doing something wrong. If you're going into encounters with the recommended number of healers, spamming your heart out, and then claiming "oh there was no downtime, ever", then something is amiss.

Every fight has downtime, either because your healing team creates it, or because it's incorporated into the encounter. As shown in the preceding section, there are plenty of opportunities to incorporate an LB cast into your rotation, but only if you look for them. If you've ever cast a HW in a raid because "there's not much damage going out" or because "I have nothing better to do" --NEWS FLASH-- that's your downtime! But you need to think of it in those terms. You need to first realize that there's always a choice in front of you as a healer, and one of the options is to not heal. This is what triage is all about.

Source

Anyways: Do what you want to do. Refering to my older post:

Also while its true that you should aim towards one stat dependend on your healing style I for my part aim for a balanced output.
Shamas were, are and will always be the jack of all trades, master of nothing regarding heal. And while it's true that everyone thinks you are raid heal EVERY good raidlead will know that you are in fact not. It all depends on what your raid needs.
Raiding with a Druid? Great, concentrate on the tanks, while also healing the raid.
Raiding with a Pala? Great, concentrate on the raid, while also healing the tank.

It all depends on YOU. And thats what makes shaman so challenging to play. There is no definte rule, no guidelines which you have to abide to become a good resto sham.

[TheRealObsydian]

@naudid

Even though I have been playing shamans since Vanilla, I'm not the kind of person that believes I have all the answers and I know everything.

While doing my own napkin math for TC, I was honestly quite surprised by the amount of mana I could gain from it. While reading your post it seems even more likely that with raid buffs and all sorts of bonuses that number could increase slightly.

Now currently, there is no available content that can Oom a resto shaman with 2set T12 (unless you are solo healing BoT 10 or 3-4 Healing Bot 25) but you are winning me over to TC. There is always room for improvement and anyone who doesn't believe that is naive.

I'll make a build w/o acuity and give this a test. I do not gear for much haste past the riptide breakpoint so my mana gains wont be as prolific as others' but yeah... I think there is more merit to this build then I originally gave it credit for. Now I just need to find something that ooms me.... :/

[naudid]

@naudid

Even though I have been playing shamans since Vanilla, I'm not the kind of person that believes I have all the answers and I know everything.

While doing my own napkin math for TC, I was honestly quite surprised by the amount of mana I could gain from it. While reading your post it seems even more likely that with raid buffs and all sorts of bonuses that number could increase slightly.

Now currently, there is no available content that can Oom a resto shaman with 2set T12 (unless you are solo healing BoT 10 or 3-4 Healing Bot 25) but you are winning me over to TC. There is always room for improvement and anyone who doesn't believe that is naive.

I'll make a build w/o acuity and give this a test. I do not gear for much haste past the riptide breakpoint so my mana gains wont be as prolific as others' but yeah... I think there is more merit to this build then I originally gave it credit for. Now I just need to find something that ooms me.... :/

I'm feeling you man.
Going into BoT with Ilvl 365 is quite boring ^^

Maybe me being such a huge fan of TC is that I absolutly LOVE the fact that a healer damages the boss and actually GAINS something usefull.
I'm also a huge fan of the Atonement Spec of discipline Priest, but its like being in sport class building your football team and the atonement spec is one of those "special kids". Knowing PI to the 17th digit isn't really helpfull if you are looking for a striker.

Also 2set T12 bonus isnt as strong as it sounds. 1% base mana sounds much, but considering that your base mana as a shaman is only 23430 it returns "only" 234 mana.
It takes 2,5 Riptide ticks to proc the T12 Bonus (in average)
Seeing as a Riptide does 8+1 initial ticks it averages out to 3,6 T12 procs

234.3 * 9 * 0.4 =843,48 mana gained

Its basically reducing the cost of one Riptide by 38%. Don'T get me wrong here, it's still a good bonus, but it sounds better than it is.

Also about this haste thing. Don't worry. Haste is in theory slightly better in spam situations, but in actual combat situations the time gained through haste will very seldom be enough to get off another lightning bolt. You will only start casting heals again faster and gain no extra mana
TC scales well with both Haste and Crit. Haste scales roughly 1.87 times better than Crit for Lightning Bolt damage, but Crit is roughly seven times more effective for TC regeneration as it does not increase the initial mana cost
Source

Edit: Also: if you go for a TC oriented build don't underestimate the thought process behind: "Casting LB or Heal". Before it was only "heal" now you have a choice before every cast which can really hinder your heal capablities at first, but with more time you will learn to make these quick decisions.

With TC you need to reevaluate your Spirit. I rarely go for a Spirit value higher than 2,5k (I have 2,2k right now), because Crit/mastery are better for my heals in the long run, because of the huge mana gain I get from TC.
For example Core of Ripeness would give me almost 0 benefit if I use it instead of my Tear of Blood, because in the boss fights right now (BoT/BWD) I have almost infinite mana.

[TheRealObsydian]

I'm feeling you man.
Going into BoT with Ilvl 365 is quite boring ^^

Maybe me being such a huge fan of TC is that I absolutly LOVE the fact that a healer damages the boss and actually GAINS something usefull.
I'm also a huge fan of the Atonement Spec of discipline Priest, but its like being in sport class building your football team and the atonement spec is one of those "special kids". Knowing PI to the 17th digit isn't really helpfull if you are looking for a striker.

Also 2set T12 bonus isnt as strong as it sounds. 1% base mana sounds much, but considering that your base mana as a shaman is only 23430 it returns "only" 234 mana.
It takes 2,5 Riptide ticks to proc the T12 Bonus (in average)
Seeing as a Riptide does 8+1 initial ticks it averages out to 3,6 T12 procs

234.3 * 9 * 0.4 =843,48 mana gained

Its basically reducing the cost of one Riptide by 38%. Don'T get me wrong here, it's still a good bonus, but it sounds better than it is.

Also about this haste thing. Don't worry. Haste is in theory slightly better in spam situations, but in actual combat situations the time gained through haste will very seldom be enough to get off another lightning bolt. You will only start casting heals again faster and gain no extra mana
TC scales well with both Haste and Crit. Haste scales roughly 1.87 times better than Crit for Lightning Bolt damage, but Crit is roughly seven times more effective for TC regeneration as it does not increase the initial mana cost
Source

Edit: Also: if you go for a TC oriented build don't underestimate the thought process behind: "Casting LB or Heal". Before it was only "heal" now you have a choice before every cast which can really hinder your heal capablities at first, but with more time you will learn to make these quick decisions.

With TC you need to reevaluate your Spirit. I rarely go for a Spirit value higher than 2,5k (I have 2,2k right now), because Crit/mastery are better for my heals in the long run, because of the huge mana gain I get from TC.
For example Core of Ripeness would give me almost 0 benefit if I use it instead of my Tear of Blood, because in the boss fights right now (BoT/BWD) I have almost infinite mana.

Yes I agree with this fully. Been testing it out and the mana gains are quite large indeed. Not to mention that whenever the boss takes more damage it is a flat mana increase for us(magmaw/halfus)

Currenlty going with a /cast [@focus] Lightning Bolt macro to ensure that there is no target switching for LB. This disrupts my previous focus method of focusing Tank and letting Power Aura's tell me if riptide and ES are still up. But tbh that's not really needed regardless.

As far as spirit goes, I agree. As they say, if you finish a fight with any extra mana, its a wasted stat. I'm finishing fights near full mana so that I definitely have some reforging to do. However I will wait until firelands is open to fully gauge what I need to do.

For now Crit mastery and TC seems to be a nice mix.

[naudid]

I solved the target switch problem with a target of target macro:
/cast [@targettarget] Lightning Bolt

I can still focus whoever I want, but don't need to switch target, because generally anyone has his target set on the Boss.

[TheRealObsydian]

I like that better. Much better.

[Shathor]

Nice to see someone was convinced TC is usefull. Honestly I don't know where else to spend those 2 talent points. Perhabs Ancestral Swiftness. In addition I still oom sometimes, just because I wan't to come out on top :) and Mana Tide feels so weak after nerve. You can't count on Innervate too.

[FeiLang]

I did my test on the dummies with 0 hit... I roughly hit the target 75% of the time on a raid boss (which is not your primary target if you can get an add) At 75% with 2 points in TC, I come out with roughly 300 more mana that I spent on average. This is still good. Obviously if you get the 100% spell hit cap through spirit (8 points total in ele tree), then it is even better. Not to mention it will only get better with more gear.

I prefer TC because I like it's offensive feel for my sham in arenas and bgs as well.
Being able to simultaneously lightning bolt and frost shock gives me about a 12k burst, gives the shock buff of 30% more healing and costs a lot less mana on my next heal to boot.

Downside, if I get interrupted, I am boned... so only do it if you are not being focused of course lol.

[Shathor]

Modified TC macro:

#showtooltip Lightning Bolt
/cast [harm, @targettarget] [harm, @target] [harm, @focus] Lightning Bolt;

Casts Lightning Bolt on your target's target, while you heal, or if you target boss or if nothing targeted it goes for focus (which I have on boss normally).