Resto Shaman - "Too" Much Haste?

Hello Tankspot:

I've spoken to many resto shamans, and have been told several different things when it comes to gemming for resto shamans. At the moment I'm sitting at 1310 haste (39.95%) and I'm worried about the fact that I don't have high enough spell power. Some shamans have told me that stacking SP/haste gems is a better idea, and others have told me to stack pure 20 haste gems (besides the meta requirement), like I'm doing now.

Trying to improve in any way possible, and obviously I'm missing a lot of BiS pieces. Would greatly appreciate some advice as to if I'm in a good spot at the moment, or if there are tiny things I can do to improve.

Here's a link to my armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...maw&cn=Frellis

Thank you very much in advance!

I'm not a sham heals but one of my guildies is. He too was stacking haste and MP5. He found towards the Plague wing of ICC that he was not being able to keep things up. He was not dropping under 80% mana. He then changed some MP5 to SP and did slightly better. He then started using haste/sp gems and no has no problem. remember, you dont have to worry about casting as much if your heals hit for more....

Well I have read, from several sources, that for raid healing purposes, stacking pure haste is far greater than with SP according to calculations for shamans...Whether they are true or not is something I'm unsure of.

It depends on what you're doing. 3.3k SP is a pretty decent amount, especially considering you should be able to keep an extra 250 or so SP up from your relic and at least 144 from flametongue (more if you've got an ele shaman or what have you)

If you're tank healing for a 10-man, you're pretty much over the haste cap and would focus more on SP (and some MP5 so you can bomb HW all day). If you're raid healing and most using CH, the more haste the merrier right?

My main job is raid healing, which is the reason I thought so much haste would be appropriate.

As I said, it kinds of depends on personal preference and personal style. I tend to try and balance SP and haste because I do a lot of tank healing. I have almost as much spell power as you do but WAY less haste (because I have pretty much entirely 10 man gear, so I have less raw stats altogether). Personally, I don't chain heal THAT much so I prefer to balance my stats a little more. I do have two different "sets" though as I have different mp5 and haste shields, chest and pants. My MP5 pieces are stacked with more SP gems (I switch around to keep 2pc T10 because I have T10 chest, pants, shoulder and then chest & pants that dropped from BQL and PP I think).

You could always try regemming and see how you like it, but that can be pretty expensive. If you end up with any sidegrades (which I guess probably doesn't happen as much in 25 man as it does in 10 man--there was literally no one else who could use the Prof P pants so they gave them to me by default, as the hunter sure didn't want them and we have no healadins) you can gem them differently so you can switch around and see if it improves your healing.

You can also run Shaman HEP and see how much it tells you to value haste. Because you're over the soft cap it may be time to start stacking SP a bit more. /shrug

My friend ran a simulation and told me that with my current gear (all pieces together) most of my haste stacking is pointless. I guess since I can already get 3 chain heals in per riptide (for raid healing) as long as I stay at that level, I don't need to be stacking all haste, and can replace a lot of them with SP/haste.

You left out some crucial details - are you having problems keeping the raid alive? If so, on what fights and in what kind of situations?

Or are you just trying to improve even if you're already doing well in your raids? (never hurts to ask for a review even if there are no glaring issues)

I really, really do not trust sims for healing. At all. It's simply dependant on so many variables and so dependant on your playstyle that no computer program can tell you what to do properly. Same reason I don't entirely trust EJ for healing information (or at least, don't follow their advice to the extent I would for a DPS), you need to filter all that info through your own playstyle and raiding situation.

I wish I could give you some more useful advice but my Resto Sham has been collecting dust since ToC (well, now she carries two axes and hacks the crap out of stuff). Good luck!

Well:

My position in healing is to heal the raid, generally speaking. My rotation at the moment consists of Riptide > Chain Heal x 3, rinse and repeat. There is, of course, the occasional Lesser Healing Wave or Healing Wave I would throw on the tank for those situations that would require so, however mainly I'm just keeping the raid topped off.

At the moment, as far as I am concerned, my heals are fast enough to keep people alive. I'm really just looking to see if there are little things that I can do to improve, since there's nothing perfect. I play my class well - I just want to see if changing my gems would make a difference.

The Haste cap for LHW & RT (GCD cap) is 1269 rating. (using aura + WoA)
The Haste cap for the first HW after RT (with T10) is 1143.
Personally I'ld advise going past the GCD cap, because with that much Haste, your spellpower gives you way more HPS than that extra rating.

Well does stacking haste become useless at certain points?

http://lifeingroup5.com/?p=96

With pretty charts and graphs. As we've said about 18 times, it becomes "useless" at different points for different spells

Pretty sure ancestral recall and ancestral spirit will continue to benefit from more and more haste for pretty much ever. With my 2pcT10 my res is about 6 seconds.

I play a resto shaman as well. Troll..roll around 800 haste at the moment. (797 to be exact)
I've been exploring this concept now for awile. I've recently trimmed my haste down to this. Since then, I've loved it. I have the 4 piece T10.. 2-264 trinkets. I've peaked 12-15k in some crazy instances..I lean away from the heal/dps meters, but i still watch them. I've solo healed 2 of the VOA bosses, which werent pretty, but still worth the time to see. I love it when people let me try to solo heal bosses. Solo'd the begining trash of ICC 10...for about 5-7 clean pulls. Was a confusion with some of the off spec'd, new people, running with us. Always try to run with 3+ with healing off specs. I plan to add maybe 100 or more haste, just to get closer to the 3 CHs per riptide.

I love my shaman. At the moment, I don't want to change a thing about him. I don't want to fix something not broken. The haste I have right now..I can see the change in him, when i switch out a couple items, for Mp5 and found it quite hindering to my performance. Just started to get the feel of the haste now. I think it's the Resto arena attempts, that opened that door for me.

I'd advise resto arena!!