Call of the Elements: Restoration Shaman Healing Guide (4.3.4 ) [Amashaman]

[Ambofosho]

CALL OF THE ELEMENTS:

RESTORATION SHAMAN PvE (4.3)

Written by - Amashaman (Amamonster) of Myrmidons
Edited by - Kimme (Littlematt) of Myrmidons and Sanctified Wrath

Why a Restoration Shaman?

Now the first question anyone should ask themselves is why? Why This? Why That? Well why a Restoration Shaman? Because we are FRICKIN AMAZING THAT'S WHY!! Not only that but Restoration Shamans are versatile healers who can deal with virtually ANY healing situation(in my own humble experience) provided before them. But like any other class we have our pros and cons.

Pros:

• Excels at AoE stack healing
• Great Burst Healing
• Versatile Healing Styles
• Can tank and raid heal efficiently
• WE MAKE IT RAIN *****ES!!!

Cons:

• Low Maneuverability while healing
• Can't Spread Heal if our life depended on it.

Now if I haven't convinced you that restoration shaman is best for you then go roll a Blood Death Knight and TROLOLOLOL!! Your way to victory. But if you decide to stick around please feel free to comment and discuss at the end of my guide.

Our Tool Kit - Spells:

Healing Wave: Our go to spammable heal. This should be in use for the majority of a fight if incoming damage permits us to do so. Low Mana Cost.

Greater Healing Wave: Our ÔÇ£BIGÔÇØ heal. Use when incoming damage is to large to be handled by Healing Wave. Medium Mana Cost.

Healing Surge: Our ÔÇ£OMFG WTF HAPPENEDÔÇØ heal. This heal should ONLY be used when your target is in danger of dying, healing of your target needed to happen ÔÇ£yesterdayÔÇØ, or at the end of a fight to pad HPS meters(LMAO). High Mana Cost.

Riptide: The most mana-efficient heal in our inventory. Has an on-hit healing effect along with a secondary HoT. Provides the Tidal Waves buff. Note: Managing this spell is crucial to any Restoration Shaman's success. Low Mana Cost

Earth Living Weapon: A cast and for get self-enchant to our weapon. A passive proc HoT on anyone target that receives healing from our spells. No mana Cost.

Chain Heal: Our basic Multi-Target Smart Heal. Hits up to 4 people prioritizing those with lower health. Provides the Tidal Waves Buff. Medium Mana Cost.

Healing Rain: Our signature spell. An AoE healing spell which makes all the other healers jealous. Should be used when stacked. High Mana Cost.

Water Shield: Bolsters our Mana Regeneration. Increases Mana Regeneration and gives us mana every time a charge is absorbed. Modified by Improved shields and Resurgence. No Mana cost.

Earth Shield: Our Single Target Healing Helper. Places a shield on our target and increases our healing done to that target. Also heals every time a charge is absorbed.

Unleash Elements: Our ÔÇ£Heal BoosterÔÇØ. Provides a small initial heal and increases our next DIRECT heal 20%.

Spirit Link Totem: Our Raid Cool-down. Our BIG raid cool-down and arguably the best in the game right now. Redistributes health between all players within range to an equilibrium.

Mana Tide Totem: Our Mana Cool-down. Increases our and raid members spirit by 200% of OUR spirit, effectively increasing our Mana Regeneration to a level of insanity.

SpiritWalker's Grace: We can cast while running...WHHHEEEEEEE!!! This is awesome and most shamans don't use it.

Nature's Swiftness: Makes your next nature spell insta-cast.

Talents:

The following is a base talent tree of what i feel is ABSOLUTELY necessary to take for your restoration shaman:

The only point I would move is the point in Cleansing Waters. In order to get down to the next tier of talents your 3 choices which will be discussed below. So to summarize this talent tree leaves you with 1 optional point in the Restoration Tree and 5 points which you may use to your liking.


4th tier or below options:

• Cleansing Waters: Reduces mana cost of Cleanse Spirit. Adds a small heal to the spell also. Great for fights where you know you will be dispelling debuffs. Situational HPS increase. Kimmy recommends instead of putting points into this, put points in Telluric Currents. (See description below)
• Focused Insights: Gives you a buff that decreases the mana cost of your next healing spell by 25/50/75% and increases its effectiveness by 10/20/30%. An overall HPS increase when used properly but if used IMPROPERLY can effect your mana in the long run.
• Nature's Guardian: VERY VERY SITUATIONAL. Not even worth discussing in my opinion. Just don't take it for PvE.
• Ancestral Resolve: Reduces damage taken while casting spells by 5/10%. Can be good for progression raiding when you are trying to learn fights and are taking a lot of damage. Otherwise skip.

Your remaining 5 points:

• Acuity: increases your critical strike chance by 1/2/3% . An indirect HPS increase. ALSO: Note extra crit helps with mana! See the Stats Priority section for more information. You WANT this.
• Ancestral Swiftness: Increases movement speed and can potentially make your ghost wolf spell instant cast. Great for high movement fights. (Kimmy does not recommend wasting points here.)
• Telluric Currents: Gives you a positive mana return on lightning bolt casts. A good talent if you find yourself having mana problems or have downtime during a fight. But remember it is only a good pick if you UTILIZE IT. Direct ÔÇ£ActiveÔÇØ Mana Increase
  

Of course, its your final decision that will make or break your talents so all i can suggest is that you choose wisely. Keey in mind, Resto Shamans ALWAYS WANT TO BE CASTING! With that said, you want to either be spamming Healing Wave inbetween casting, or Lightning bolt.. depending on your talents.

Glyphs:

PRIME:

• Glyph of Riptide: Allows you to maintain 3 riptides at one time. Direct HPS increase
• Glyph of Earth Living Weapon: Increases effectiveness of the proc by 20%. Direct HPS increase
• Glyph of Earth Shield: Increases the amount of healing done by Earth Shield by 20%. Direct HPS increase.

MAJOR:

• Glyph of Healing Stream Totem: Adds the resistance of Elemental Resistance Totem to Healing Stream Totem. Indirect Mana Increase
• Glyph of Healing Wave: Heals yourself for 20% of the healing done by your healing wave. Direct HPS increase
• Glyph of Chain Heal: Decreases the amount of healing of chain heal on the first target by 10 %, but increases healing on all other targets by 15%
  

Other: Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem: Gives you a shield that absorbs incoming damage up to ~17k. Indirect Mana Increase

MINOR:

• Take Glyph of Renewed Life. Otherwise YOLO.
• Glyph of Arctic Wolf- or something like that. Makes your wolf form white instead of ugly brown.

Stat Priority

As i stated in the intro to the guide shaman a very VERSATILE healers that have different healing play styles. So basically that means that there IS NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO PLAY SHAMAN! Yes i said it, there is no cookie cutter on how to heal as a shaman. What I can do is provide the information that will allow to choose a healing style that benefits the way that you already play.

The general consensus of most of the shaman is the following:

Intellect > Spirit(until ÔÇ£enoughÔÇØ) > Haste(916) > GO CRAAZY

Intellect - The choice as intellect as our prime stat should be simple enough. It provides spell power, critical strike, mana, and scales with all of our abilities.

Spirit - Long gone are the days of 4.0.6 where we stacked Spirit through our arses. Now Spirit is our second highest stat due to one reason. Without mana we can't heal... am i right or am i right? That's why it is until we have ÔÇ£enough of itÔÇØ. Now ÔÇ£enoughÔÇØ doesn't mean you are at 1% mana at the end of a fight. ÔÇ£EnoughÔÇØ is more like, hey im at 30% now but if **** got real i could of handled it and still not have gone OOM. For me this rating is around 2500-2700 but its different for everyone.

Haste (916) ÔÇô The reason why this is such a crucial break point is that it is our first ÔÇ£break-pointÔÇØ. It is the the rating in which we gain an extra tick from Healing Rain, Earth Living Weapon, and Riptide. More Ticks = More Healing = More HPS.



GO CRAZY: Haste vs. Crit vs. Mastery

Okay, now this is where the ÔÇ£YOUÔÇØ factor comes in. All three of these stats have pros and cons. Lets discuss them from a neutral vantage point:

Haste (Gotta go fast like Sonic) ÔÇô Haste is the number one secondary stat for healing throughput through the basic logic of More Spells = More Healing. You reduce the GCD between spells and decrease of cast time of each individual one. Simple enough right? But let's finish this logic statement. More Spells = More Healing = Less Mana. Inverse Relationships Anybody?? So while haste is the greatest benefactor, it can also be your worst nightmare in some situations. But there is one more thing about Haste.... More Haste Caps!!! Should you decide that you WANT MOAR you should also consider hitting the following haste caps:

1296 ÔÇô Rating needed for an extra tick on abilities during Bloodlust, or something like that.
2005 - Rating needed for an extra tick of Riptide


Critical Strike(I'm friends with RNG Gods so its okay) ÔÇô Crit Rating is described as the ÔÇ£Middle GroundÔÇØ of the three stats. It can potentially increase your healing and proc both Ancestral Fortitude and Ancestral Awakening! Not to mention that it increase your ÔÇ£ActualÔÇØ mana pool through the Resurgence talent. Now that's ALOT of potential from one secondary stat!!! But in there lies the problem; It is all POTENTIAL!!! These benefits are not guaranteed every time you cast a spell and therefore you risk, wishing and hoping for a crit when the numbers just aren't rolling for you.


Mastery (*insert whitty comment*) - After the change to mastery from 4.0.6, it developed from Nub Mode 7 to L-L-L-LEGENDARY! Its passive bonus to healing based on the health of your target is sheer added throughput. Because if your target isn't taking damage... WHY THE **** ARE YOU HEALING THEM! But lets look at if from a more mathematical perspective.

When target is < 100% hp: Mastery is better than haste for Healing Rain, ELW, ES
When target is < 84% hp: Mastery is better than crit for Healing Rain, Chain heal, Unleash Elements, ELW, ES, Riptide HOT
When target is < 67% hp: Mastery is better than crit for Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, Healing Surge and Riptide Direct Heal
When target is < 48% hp: Mastery is your strongest stat period.
(source: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2369739879)


Now to conclude this section lets sum it all up. Haste is the best throughput stat..Period. Mastery is the most efficient and safest secondary stat. Crit is in the middle but when stacked is not as effective as Haste nor Mastery. This is why when it comes to 4.3 the general consensus in the shaman community looked like the following:

Intellect > Spirit(until ÔÇ£enoughÔÇØ) > Haste(916) > Mastery > Crit > Haste
OR
Intellect > Spirit(until ÔÇ£enoughÔÇØ) > Haste(2005) > Mastery > Crit

Both represent great healing strategies and are viable options while healing as a shaman. However, some shamans like crit > mastery for the mana regen factor. To view, comment, and share your opinions on the Crit VS. Mastery debate, visit this forum link.

Enchants

Head:
Arcanum of Hyjal - Revered with the Guardians of Hyjal

Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone(Therazane)
Felfire Inscription(Inscription)

Cloak:
Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect
Lightweave Embroidery(Tailoring)

Chest:
Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats

Bracer:
Enchant Bracer - Mighty Intellect
Draconic Embossment - Intellect (Leatherworking)

Gloves:
Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery or Enchant Gloves - Haste

Legs:
Powerful Ghostly Spellthread Or Powerful Enchanted Spellthread

Boots:
Enchant Boots - Haste or Enchant Boots - Mastery or Enchant Boots - Lavawalker

Rings:
Intellect(Enchanting)

Shield:
Enchant Shield - Superior Intellect

Weapon: Heartsong Vs. Power Torrent
Enchant Weapon - Heartsong or Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent

Alright so here's another decision you are going to have to make as a player. Heartsong is a spirit proc while Power Torrent is an intellect proc. Based on the stat priority discussed earlier one would come to the conclusion that Intellect > Spirit which means Power Torrent > Heartsong right? The answer i would give that person would be yes and no. Yes Power Torrent provides bigger healing numbers but at the same time it is a proc. You don't decide when to use it and can ultimately be wasted in a few situations. While on the other hand Heartsong provides spirit which increases our mana regeneration and as a result our active mana pool. Not to mention that it also procs more often than power torrent.


Gems

Red slot - Brilliant Inferno Ruby (Intellect)
Blue ÔÇô Purified Demonseye (Intellect + Spirit)
Yellow ÔÇô Artful Ember Topaz or Reckless Ember Topaz (Intellect + Mastery or Intellect + Haste)
Meta - Ember Shadowspirit Diamond (Intellect + 2% Maximum mana)

You should gem ONLY Brilliant Inferno Rubies unless the socket bonus is 20 Intellect or more. Otherwise the stats are wasted, because Intellect > all.

I Mana Tide, You Mana Tide, We all Mana Tide.

But the real question is when? Mana Tide is one of your most crucial cool-downs, especially in longer fights. You shouldn't wait until you have virtually no mana remaining. What you want to do is be able to use it more than once in a fight. Personally, I use it around 80% mana where I know I'll get the maximum benefit of the totem. While still being able to use it later in the fight. Also don't forget that Mana Tide Totem scales with your CURRENT SPIRIT. This means that both Heartsong procs and stacking spirit trinkets such as Darkmoon Card: Tsunami amplify its effects.



Tidal Waves 101

Tidal waves is a buff that is proc'd by Riptide and Chain heal. It increases the casting speed of your your next Healing Wave or Greater Healing Wave. It also increases the critical strike chance of your next Healing Surge. You want this buff up as much as possible as it will allow you faster casting and like we said earlier More Spells = More Healing. Spell weaving Riptide and Chain Heal into your rotation will prove to not only increase your total HPS but also help with the fluidity of your healing. Utilizing Tidal Waves correctly is the HEART of Resto Shaman healing, and if you can not learn to do this properly, you will not be a successful shaman.



Focused Insights and Unleashed Elements

Focused Insights and Unleashed elements are both single spell buffs that when weaved into your normal rotation, will help increase your total output. Unleashed Elements grants a small heal and a 20% buff on a direct heal, while Focused Insights was discussed under the talent portion of this guide. This means that unleashed elements will be most effective when used on Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, Chain Heal, and Riptide. While Focused Insights will be best used on high mana cost, high healing spells such as: Healing Rain and Greater Healing Wave (although it will be beneficial to all healing spells). Please do not forget that these are part of what seems like ever expanding tool-set.



Shaman Utility

Why be limited to just healing when we can do so much more? As you can see a good Shaman will have no problems healing fights so why not help others do their jobs as well. Here are some spells that can help out in a tight spot:

• Frost Shock - can be used to kite single target enemies.
  
• Earth bind totem - great for slowing a group of enemies.
  
• Earth Shock - can help out a tank or anyone else being targeted by applying Weakened Blows(Reduces physical damage done by 10%) to an enemy.
  
• Hex ÔÇô Hard Crowd Control that can transform a Humanoid or Beast into a frog.
  
• Bind Elemental ÔÇô Binds an enemy elemental for 50 seconds.
  
• Rock Biter Weapon + Unleashed Elements ÔÇô Best used when **** hits the fan and you can taunt an enemy off of a friendly target.

Proactive vs Reactive Healing

The final topic i will cover not only applies to shaman but for ALL healers out there. And it is the topic which separates a good healer from a great healer. A good healer will do his task and get you through a fight with as few deaths as possible. On the other hand a GREAT healer will know WHEN damage is incoming, WHERE it is coming from, and HOW best to deal with it before it is even applied. In the case of the shaman this could mean a variety of combinations of spells such as:

Focused Insights -> Spiritwalker's Grace -> Healing Rain on soon to be stacked area

Unleashed Elements -> Nature's swiftness -> Greater Healing Wave to prepare for burst damage

Riptide(on target) -> Unleashed Elements -> Chain Heal when you know multiple people are about to take damage

There are MANY MANY more things you can do to help deal with certain situations and THIS is why shamans are so great. No matter what the problem we can deal with it all it takes is knowing your abilities and a little imagination.

Many players on World of Warcraft like to use the typical UI and as little as addons as possible. However, as most of the more skilled players may know, this is not the most efficient way to play. There is nothinig wrong with the basic UI, however in order to utilize your abilities and make them more available to you and easier to use, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you use keybinds and a HEALING ADDON. Good healing addons are the following: Vuhdo* (recommended), Healbot, "Grid + Clique". Healing addons allow you to cast spells on players without having to target the players first. This is INCREDIBLY effective and efficient. This allows you to cast spells twice as fast. It cuts out the time you have to take to target players and lets you heal them directly. Using a healing addon is most effective on Resto druids and Resto Shamans. A healing addon is one of the many factors that help determine and differentiate between a GOOD healer and a GREAT healer.


Please Feel Free To Leave Comments, Criticisms, and Questions. All are much appreciated.
To view, comment, and share your opinions on the Crit VS. Mastery debate, visit this forum link.

Enjoy Your Shaman.
And May The Elements Be With You.

[Varmes]

[krupam]

Eh, I was in middle of doin' my guide, when I suddenly see this. Okay, maybe less than middle. Hell, I still could disagree with half of this, though.

Eh, floor this, I'm still gonna post mine, did too much of it already. Maybe less colorful...

[manicka111]

I have found some mistakes.
Glyph of Chain Heal: Allows your chain heal to now heal 5 targets, but reduces the total amount of healing to each target respectively. Situational Direct HPS increase. Not true.
Glyph of Chain Heal: It does decrease healing for first target by 10%, but increase for the rest 3 by 15%. (Heal increase).

I Mana Tide, You Mana Tide, We all Mana Tide.
Also don't forget that Mana Tide Totem scales with your CURRENT SPIRIT. This means that both Heartsong procs and trinkets such as Core of Ripeness and Darkmoon Card: Tsunami amplify its effects. Not true.
Mana tide totem excludes short spirit duration buffs such as these you posted. It does apply for potions scrolls players buffs etc.

[krupam]

Glyph of Chain Heal: It does decrease healing for first target by 10%, but increase for the rest 3 by 15%. (Heal increase).

This. He probably mistook the glyph with Chain Lightning. Unglyphed Chain Heal is pretty much useless.

Mana tide totem excludes short spirit duration buffs such as these you posted. It does apply for potions scrolls players buffs etc.

Stackin' Trinkets should count, as they are virtually permament, which is why DMC:T or the Trinky from Spine are so good for us.
As for Trinks like CoR, they should not work. However, they do. That said, using this to your advantage is an exploit, go get banned, bye bye.


By the way, usin' Focused Insight or Unleash Life is both HpS loss. Deal with it.

[Kemii]

Myrmiderpz strikes again!

Ama go resize the images for 620px x *px ... Them resizing bars make it distracting.

[AmaMonsta]

This. He probably mistook the glyph with Chain Lightning. Unglyphed Chain Heal is pretty much useless.

You are correct i must have gotten thoughts mixed up while writing this guide. Will be changed soon

Stackin' Trinkets should count, as they are virtually permament, which is why DMC:T or the Trinky from Spine are so good for us.
As for Trinks like CoR, they should not work. However, they do.

Also true, the change was made 4.0.6. I voted it up on the Bugtracker and shall remove it from the guide as well.

By the way, usin' Focused Insight or Unleash Life is both HpS loss. Deal with it.

A total HPS loss maybe but not an effective HPS loss. HPS is important to an extent but as any other healer will tell you its only one part of a BIGGER picture. Focused insights and Unleashed Elements have their place in Shaman tool-set and are valuable to any Shaman.

I should've reserved a post for a changelog at the end... oh well

[Dwarfos]

Telluric currents does give positive mana back, but its so small its useless, telluric is crap.

As far as im aware Elemental weapons is bugged and does not benefit earthliving, unless they stealth fixed it.

Mastery is not better than haste at < 100% , mastery only starts getting useful below 67% and with above 40% mastery, making your statement abit uninformative. And without enough haste to get off a heal, the person may just die anyway.

Spirit is better than crit for mana regen at all times, crit is only good for helping to heal with ancestral awakening since you effectively gain 268% of a heal on crit (with meta gem), but again this is random and could over heal anyway, or heal a person who is already being healed by a HoT etc.

Unleash elements is bugged for riptide. Good for using on tanks in retail as a sort of constant high healing HoT, but bugged on molten.

You never really want to use unleash and natures swiftness for big heals , since if u need a big heal , u wont have the GCD to waste on using unleash. Unless you really mastery stack, in which case you just wont need the unleash anyway. Also unleash is better used for healing rain in stacked fights.

Theres probably more things i can add, but tbh the guide is very conflicting in parts, not really to the point where it should be, and not in enough depth in other areas, where it needs to be.

Feels more like an overview of shamans without any real direct guidance.

[Kemii]

There you go Ama, Ben read it ^

[Dwarfos]

Sorry ama, didnt know it was you, ye nadine did ask me to look at yours and i never did.

Anyway i guess il go into more detail - telluric currents gives mana back, but also you are not healing during this period, you are better to use healing wave with an ok amount of crit to gain mana back while being somewhat useful.

The previous poster commented about the HPS loss of both unleash and focused insights, focused insights is a very bad HPS loss due to the amount of GCD you are wasting and the amount of time the buff lasts for, put bluntly if you have to target a mob, shock the mob, then target a person to heal them, you are wasting too much time, and you will find yourself falling behind a lot of heals, if you are "bored" as a shaman, you fill things in with totems/healing wave. Never get trigger happy with shocks, also shocks cost a fair bit of mana and you are essentially losing out on mana to cast a heal which will either 1) over-heal, or 2) cause a health deficit in the first place, leading to the complete waste of time in using it, you are better to heal them with small heals or riptides to prevent a high deficit in HP. Instead of causing the deficit only to then waste time trying to fill the deficit.

The difference between mastery and crit is a good topic which needs further depth.
Its not a personal choice, it depends on the setting you are in. If you are in a setting whereby people are constantly low (maybe an heroic raid with 2 healers, or a 25 man raid with less than optimal number of healers) in this case, mastery is king. People will be low multiple times and things like healing rain and chain heal would serve more use than having high crit. But in this case you will also need more spirit for the mana regen.

As stated earlier, spirit beats crit for pure mana regen, always has and will. The good thing about crit is that it effectively gives a nice smart heal which comes from a crit heal. Also something which may need to be explained is that haste is a mana loss yes, but with sufficient crit, haste can actually work in your favor from a mana regen point of view, more heals = more chance to crit = more procs = more mana back. This is a balancing act between haste and crit though.

Ghost wolf in pve is a strange topic but it does in fact work very nicely in certain encounters and should always be thought of, its never a direct NO to having it. Good example may be alysrazor, how do you get from 1 side to the other in a desperate situation (maybe someone messed up etc), remember you can cast heals while in ghost form, you dont need to cancel ghost form then cast, so you can run over to a suitable range and cast and it comes out of ghost wolf.

Also stated earlier, why waste unleash and natures swiftness, using natures swiftness means a situation is dire and a person is basically f****d, so only ever use natures swiftness on its own instantly, you can follow up with another heal after if need be, also if you are using both, why not just riptide and cast greater heal then, its like same amount of time. Or why not just healing surge them (with sufficient mastery it heals more than greater heal).

No mention of Totemic reach, people may not know but it increases the range on every single totem, yes this includes spirit link and mana tide. also if u place a mana spring totem or healing stream in the middle of a boss fight like ragnoros, you are guaranteed to hit almost every single person in the raid with it.

Back to mastery thing - this is molten, alot of people are farming raids with high level gear, far above what they would of done on retail. Mastery is good for progression raiding (ie, being low geared for the raid), with molten, people have donated or typically farm raids, making mastery nowhere near as effective. Mastery is also bad if you play with either druid or disc, since if you heal a guy to full hp with mastery, you waste the druids hots, or theirs already an absorb on a person, meaning they were not actually in danger as such, in which case a riptide or healing wave a couple of times would be sufficient.

Small note on resurgence for shamans too, with sufficient crit chance, u can spam chain heals instead of healing waves - since each jump of the chain heal is calculated differently with regards to resurgence, leading to gaining substantial mana returns in the right situations.

Cleansing waters is a very good talent imo, if you are on a fight where u need to dispell immediately or a lot of times, you need some form of healing to occur in this instance, so spread riptides, healing stream down, spam dispells as need be.

Should mention a few bugs for people unaware of the difference in retail and molten also. (this does affect your play style). You can always edit this out once they are fixed.
Unleash elements is currently bugged - it cannot crit like it is suppose to (so it will never proc resurgence), and its not working on riptides. Making the skill less and less useful on molten.
Natures Blessing is bugged for riptides, making the need to earth shield targets before riptides useless also, this also means you need to do more direct heals on tank.

Mana tide is currently bugged - it takes into account all types of spirit boost, not just long term, this means you can take less spirit if you wish and run a high spirit on use trinket or on proc etc, just micro manage it around mana tide until its fixed.

Elemental weapons currently bugged, so taking that talent us currently useless if you dont wish to proceed further down the tree. Although i would recommend ghost wolf, or totemic reach but it depends on the fight, and what healers you are running with.

If you really are in love with telluric currents (some people are, not sure why) then you will want to mention Concussion, convection and elemental precision, these are almost necessary for this type of build. - less mana cost on lightning bolt, more damage = more mana returned, and no miss chance.

Anyway ye thats it from me, might be alot but i think for a decent shaman guide, you really need to explain in more detail, it will affect how a person plays the class, and there are multiple ways.

[krupam]

Almost every fight has places where you're free to spam that Lightning Bolt, which is why TC is so good. Once you learn how to use it, like, castin' LB every single second you don't have cast anythin' else. Elemental Precision 2/3 is a good spec for this, but is not required.

Elemental Reach, yes, it's good for certain fights, like Ragnaros, but usually it's just better to place your totems properly. Mana Tide has range good enough, Spirit Link is used for stacked raid anyway (like most Resto Shaman AoE) and Mana Spring should never be used by Resto.

Elemental Weapons works properly with Earthliving enchant, tested it. It's healin' increase is still really low, though, so unless you aim for Enh Tier 2, you're free to skip. Also, Imp. Shields doesn't affect Resurgence, so it only makes purely for Earth Shield.

For Ancestral Swiftness, it's extremely good talent, skippin' this means that you're either a noob or you're very sure you want the Ele T2 goodies. If you aim for that TC, you're better off skippin' some throughput-poor talents in Resto tree, like Blessing of the Eternals.

As for Crit vs Mastery, I personally am gonna stick with Mastery over Crit for the time being. Simply because if your raid never drops low, then there's no reason to specifically gear for it in the first place and you might even be wasting a spot in your raid as another Healer. Mastery will still reign on 5mans, as seen on fights like Sylvanas. Currently my stat prior is 916 Haste > Mastery > Crit, tryin' to keep my Crit at at least half of my Mastery, so I still have more Crit than Haste. Sayin' that either Crit or Mastery is our worst stat is bullcrap, our worst stat is Haste outside the caps.

[sixsixsix]

BUMP to not let this guide in deepth.nice one,need some changes.