[Restoration] Spiritual Guidance through the Cataclysm

[Airowird]

Whatever Deathwing will destroy, the Spirits will mend.

Welcome to the 4.3.0 Shaman Restoration Guide.
This guide will cover the basics of gearing and playing a Restoration Shaman, with the perspective of both the player, as well as the guild/raid leader in mind. Because of the similarity in gear options, this guide will occasionally touch on Elemental as off-spec to help you gear two specs with minimum added effort. If you prefer an Enhancement or PvP off-spec, feel free to ignore those points
Please know that, especially in Cataclysm, choice is what separates the good from the bad healers. This guide is not made to tell you which choices to make, but rather to inform you of the results and consequences of each choice, so that you can base your decisions on this information.


Contents:
1. Gearing/Stats
2. Healing Spells
3. Talents & Glyphs
4. Healing Styles
5. Detailled Math
6. Spreadsheet
7. Thank You

1. Gearing/Stats
In order to understand the value of your stats, you first need to know what to do.
Here is a short recap on what they mean for you exactly and how important they are together.

* Intellect: This is your primary Stat. It provides Spell Power, making the base effect of your spells more powerful, as well as a small portion of spell crit (see critical strike rating). It also provides a larger mana pool, which affects the mana regeneration you gain from the Replenishment effect as well as slightly increasing the Spirit regeneration.

* Spirit: Spirit provides direct mana regeneration. The mana regeneration you gain is a base coefficient, multiplied by your Spirit, multiplied by the square root of your Intellect. This means that Intellect has Diminishing Returns on your Spirit-based mana regeneration, while Spirit will always provide the same regeneration per point (at equal Intellect levels and more as Int goes up)

* Haste Rating: Haste allows you to cast spells faster. While Haste is usually considered the best stat to increase output, it comes at the cost of having to spend more mana over a period of time.

* Critical Strike Rating: Critical Strikes allow your heals to heal for 100% more. On top of this, you also get 30% of any direct healing crit (or 60% of the base heal) as smart heal on one of your group/raid members through Ancestral Awakening and your main abilities also return extra mana when they crit thanks to Resurgence.

* Mastery Rating: "Makes you better at what you do" according to Blizzard posters. Mastery increases the healing your heals do, depending on how much HP the target is missing. The simple formula is heal = base * (1 + Mastery% * %HP deficit).
Here is how it works exactly: If your Mastery provides "up to 30% healing", you will heal a target at 1 HP for 130% of what they would receive at full HP. This scaling is linear, so at 60% HP, this is a 12% increase (30% Mastery * 40% HP missing). Take note that Blizzard has a weird/different definition of "your healing spell", so the spell summaries below will tell you how they scale with Mastery.

Stat comparing:
SP, Mastery, Crit, Haste, it's all multiplicative, but which one is better?
First, here are the stat values after rating conversion: 1 Mastery = 1% Crit = 1,4% Haste
On top of that, most spells gain extra healing at ~1% per 100 SP (Earth Shield only gets 0.825% for the same amount of SP)
For specific weights of stats, see the Math topic at the end.

When you consider mana regeneration, you will easily notice that:
1) Haste costs mana. You will cast more, so you will spend more. Especially using GHW & HS, you can burn through your mana pool in no time.
2) Mastery has no effect on your mana pool; it merely increases the amount of healing done based on how much your raid members are dying.
3) Crit rating has a slight gain to mana regeneration. Critical strike chance will slightly increase the mana return on your main spells through Resurgence, but not in a way that it is considered a major regeneration stat.
4) Spirit grants guaranteed mana regeneration at a decent rate. It is, after all, it's one and only goal as stat!
5) Intellect grants mana regeneration through crit chance, spirit regen, as well as the Replenishment effect. Although it is inferior to crit rating and spirit in their respective parts, the combination of both, fortified by any decent (>30%) uptime of Replenishment, will actually make Intellect a decent player in mana regeneration, especially at lower gear levels.

If you add throughput and mana regeneration together, you will most likely find that;
* Intellect is probably the best stat you can get. It provides guaranteed healing bonuses as well as substantial quantities of mana regeneration. But there are very little choices where you can pick Intellect (see below)
* Spirit is a main player for regeneration and most starting Shamans would do well aiming for atleast 1742 Spirit on gear (or 1900 total), which is the Elemental raiding cap. This would allow you to go DPS with the same gear, as well as provide you with plenty of mana to use in longer fights. If you are dual specced Restoration & Elemental, remember looking into Spirit trinkets/jewelry/helm on top of the Elemental Spirit cap if your playstyle requires more mana regen than you have with this.
* When you look at combat/rating stats, you probably don't know which one is good and which ones are just wasting valuable stat points on your gear. The short version is, they're all good. Spirit should be a first priority for the mana, but after that you have crit (AH for tank dmg reduction, AA procs, Resurgence regen), Mastery (flat out healing increase and works well in tight situations where people are dying) and Haste (faster casts = more HPS but you OOM faster) all giving you decent benefits to your spells. If you are only starting out in heroics, you will most likely want to aim for Mastery & Crit first to get the most out of your mana pool. When you get better gear and start to think about moving over to raids, Haste will look more attractive due to the extra output you get, but remember that if you use expensive spells, Haste 'costs' more as well! For more details on Haste breakpoints, see the Math section.
* Keep in mind that all combat stats are multiplicative. This means that Crit, Haste & Mastery all increase in value when you have more of the other two. Balance is key here. This is especially important at entry raiding level, because you will have a decent baseline in Crit & Mastery, while Haste will be the lowest (only 5% from totem/raidbuff).

If you would want a crude priority, the easiest one (valid up to atleast T11) would be:
Intellect > Spirit(untill 'enough') > Crit/Mastery/Haste > Dance Rating
(Oops, guess you'll have to use that good ol' brain of yours!)

Generally, you will want to get to get about an equal amount of those rating stats, with a slight bonus to Haste for pure tank or 25man raid healing, a bonus to Crit for 10man raid healing or a "filler" role and Mastery becomes slightly better in a Hardmode/progress focused setup.

On Intellect:
Keep in mind that with the exception of trinkets, all your gear pieces will have Intellect on them. Usually, the amount of Intellect on an item in a certain slot is mostly dependant on the item level and will not differ much between items. This means that any choice for Intellect is limited to gems and enchants. Blizzard is actually aware of the issue where primary stats (excluding spirit) are more valuable than 'other' stats and have hinted that this will remain to be so throughout Cataclysm. As a result, trinkets without Intellect and/or Spirit are less valuable to most Restoration Shamans.
Note that Intellect procs are generally not that good for Restoration as for DPS classes, while Spirit procs are far more valuable.
If you happen to have a good On Use Intellect trinket, try to macro it together with Earth Shield and/or Mana Tide Totem for the biggest gains.
Again, for dual-specced Resto/mental Shamans, aim to get a different headpiece/jewelry/trinkets first, followed by the Tier set. This would allow plenty of stat options, with the minimal extra gear required.

[Airowird]

2. Healing Spells
Here's a short idea of what each spell does exactly, as well as it's abbreviation (for further use)

* HW = Healing Wave: The efficient heal. Healing Wave will be your go-to spell especially in heroics because it's the cheapest spammable spell. This spell will be considered the baseline when talking about the power and efficiency of other spells.
Scales with: Nature's Blessing, Ancestral Awakening & Mastery

* GHW = Greater Healing Wave: The large heal. Not as efficient as HW, but heals from 3x as much. It has roughly the best healing power of all spammable direct healing spells. Best used for recovering from a larger spike in damage.
Scales with: Nature's Blessing, Ancestral Awakening & Mastery

* HS/LHW = Healing Surge: The fast heal. Formely known as Lesser Healing Wave, HS provides a fast cast and a moderate heal (2xHW), but is extremely inefficient. While it has a high output and the fastest cast of all spammable direct healing spells, it burns mana pools faster than Deathwing can ever dream of! Only really good for situations where GHW cast time is too slow to save someone and instant heals cannot provide enough healing. This spell also receives less (relative) HPS gain from Tidal Waves, but does proc Earthliving at the same chances the slower cast heals do!
Scales with: Nature's Blessing, Ancestral Awakening & Mastery

* UL/UE = Unleash Life: The Earthliving part of Unleash Elements. UL provides a relatively small heal and has a 15s CD, but makes up for it by increasing the next direct heal by 20% (30% if talented). While the initial is rather weak and expensive, it does provide you with an extra instant cast heal. It doesn't replace a straight up HS/GHW cast while standing still, but it's worth the extra button in mobile fights.
Scales with: Nature's Blessing, Ancestral Awakening & Mastery

* ES = Earth Shield: ES is the tank-buff Shamans get for speccing into Restoration. ES provides automatic healing on the target exactly when they need it (after a hit). Only requires an instant cast and is extremely efficient, but can take a while to unload it's complete healing power. This spell is considered a buff, not a heal and as such, is not affected by talents or abilities increasing your healing done. It does scale with the healing done/received of the target it is on.
Scales with: nothing, not even Nature's Blessing!
Extra note: ES healing scales with the caster's spellpower the moment it is cast. When macro'd together with "On Use:" SP trinkets, this can add a large bonus to ES and allows you to make the most of your trinkets.

* RT = Riptide: Riptide is the 31-pointer spell for Restoration Shamans, which is a short-CD instant heal with a Heal-over-Time component. RT is extremely efficient when you let it's HoT run it's full duration, which can be difficult if you cast Chain Heal a lot ( because it consumes it) or are assigned to heal a single tank.
Only instant part scales with Ancestral Awakening & Mastery, both instant and HoT scale with Nature's Blessing.

* CH = Chain Heal: The iconic Shaman AoE healing spell. The spell is cast on a single target, after which it will jump to nearby friendly targets, healing them for 70% of the healing done. Each jump can seperately crit or proc effects. When the initial target has a Riptide HoT, it will be consumed to increase the healing on that target by 25%. Since the Riptide buff in 4.3, a single HoT tick will virtually always provide more healing than the healing increase on Chain Heal.
Scales with: Nature's Blessing & Mastery

* HR = Healing Rain: The new blanket AoE heal. HR is an area-targetted cast which will leave a large blue circle with a small rain effect on the floor, healing all those in it for a moderate amount every 2 seconds, starting when it is cast. The healing done is lowered when more than 6 players are healed. As far as pets seem to be handled, they receive healing, but do not seem to cause the reduction in healing. Because the cooldown is the same as it's duration, you can never have more than one of these up at a time, nor can you start casting the next one while it is still up. Provides more healing per cast than CH as well as proc opportunities. Advanced information: This spell is not a healing spell as far as the game is concerned. You cast an area effect, which causes you to (directly) heal everyone inside it for a certain amount every X seconds, but that healing is not considered a spell.
Scales with Mastery

* HST = Healing Stream Totem: Although technicly not a spell, this party-healing totem can provide a LOT of healing for a single GCD, healing party members for approximately 300-400 health per second in standard heroic gear (without talents). Sadly, it does not scale with crit or haste in any way.
Scales with: Spell Power. Oh, and healing received. That's it. (Because the totem is the one casting the effective heal, talents do not work.)

* EL = Earthliving Weapon (enchant): The Restoration Shaman weapon enchant. While technicly not a healing spell, it does provide healing by giving every heal you do a 20% chance to proc a 12s HoT (Chain Heal and Healing Rain have a reduced proc chance of roughly 5%). Not that much of an increase while tank healing because it keeps refreshing itself, but extremely useful for constant AoE healing or just topping off raid members after a heal. This enchant is a no-brainer for it's +healing alone, on top of being required if you wish to use UE as a healing spell and it costs no mana or time during the fight.
Scales with Mastery

* SG = Spiritwalker's Grace: A special Shaman ability, allowing them to cast while moving. The buff lasts 15 seconds with a 2 minute duration and can even be activated while casting! Recognisable by the little green circle around the Shaman's feet. Great if you have to run after a tank kiting or are being chased by angry monsters trying to nomnom your face.

* SLT = Spirit Link Totem: A raid cooldown wonnabe, this totem reduces incoming damage by 10% and redistributes the health of players in range every second, so that they all have equal relative health. Unfortunately, it's 10y range is a major party-pooper, as this "raid cooldown" only works in an area as big as your Healing Rain and is placed right behind you! This spell is mostly useful in a raiding environment, where people are standing together and you can drop HR + SLT right on top of yourself. While the health distribution can not be resisted or take advantage of heal-increasing effects, it also works the other way around. This totem allows you to heal through MS-style debuffs that reduce or prevent all other healing done by transferring health from healable players to the target in question.



3. Talents & Glyphs

3.1. Talents

Format:
* Talent(Xpoints) : <max effect in plain language> <Comment on power/utility>

* Ancestral Resolve(2) : 10% damage reduction while casting. In PvE; if you're taking damage, stop casting and move out of the fire! It's not really bad, especially in heroic mode raids, but other options are usually better.
* Tidal Focus(3) : 6% cheaper healing spells. Simple & powerful talent. With the current(T11) strain on healer mana pools, this is an extremely useful talent.
* Spark of Life(3) : You do 6% extra healing & receive 15% more. Again a powerful talent. Makes you 6% better at your job and at the same time gives you a survivability bonus.

* Resurgence(3) : Returns mana whenever you crit with your main abilities. This talent effectively turns Critical Strike Rating into mp5. One of the key talents when it comes to evaluating stats on gear.
* Totemic Focus(2) : Totems are 30% cheaper and last 40% longer. Although having to spend 500 mana less at a start of a fight is always nice, the power here lies in the duration increase. The 40% works on literally all totems, including Elementals and more importantly... Mana Tide Totem! This alone makes this talent extremely potent.
* Focused Insight(3) : Using a Shock increases the next heal by 30% and returns 75% of that Shock's mana cost. While this does make Shock spells cheap and useful, it still costs quite a lot of mana compared to the gain you receive. On top of that, the tooltip is incorrect, as it only works when the Shock manages to land.
* Nature's Guardian(3) : Automatic mini-Fade & Last Stand. Again a PvP talent. The extra HP when you're dying is nice, but you should never drop low enough for this talent to save your life. The threat reduction is not only minimal, there is no realistic situation where you out-threat a tank.

* Ancestral Healing(2) : Crit heals give your target 10% less physical damage taken and increase their max HP by up to 10%. This is one of the best tank healing tools you have. Not to mention it's a pre-requisite for another great talent; Ancestral Awakening.
* Nature's Swiftness(1) : Makes your next casted Nature spell instant. Useful for fights where you can not stand still to cast, but with the additions of UE & SG on top of Riptide, this talent has seen better days. Best used in combination with Healing Rain or Greater Healing Wave (on tank) in emergency situations.
* Nature's Blessing(3) : You heal Earth Shielded players(=tanks) for 18% more. Yet another extremely powerful tank-healing talent, although it loses some of it's effectiveness if you're the only Shaman healing two tanks swapping, due to constant ES re-casting.

* Soothing Rains(2) : Your HR heals for 30% more, your HST 50% more. Perfect for those AoE fights. Both heals provide great over-time healing and these talents only make it better. The HST buff alone makes it worth it.
* Cleanse Spirit(1) : Your decurse now also removes a magic effect. Considered mandatory, as removing magic is a healer-job nowadays.
* Cleansing Waters(2) : Makes your dispell 40% cheaper and adds a small heal to it. If you dispell enough (and you should), this talent will save you a lot of mana and at the same time help you heal up the people that took a tick of whatever debuff they had. Unfortunately the heal has a 6s CD or this talent would be considered mandatory.

* Ancestral Awakening(3) : Your direct healing crits will heal a friendly in range for 30% of the healing done. This talent greatly increases the value of crits. When single-target healing any crit will heal the lowest (in %HP) person in range of you. If nobody needs healing, it will default to you. Extremely powerful because of the smart-heal component. A must-have for all but CH-spamming.
* Mana Tide Totem(1) : Grants the healers in your raid 200% of your Spirit for 12s. Also gives hybrid casters (Druids, Priests & Shamans) a LOT of hit rating. The iconic whirlpool totem grants 200% of your Spirit (excluding temporary buffs such as trinkets) to the healers in your raid. When used in conjunction with Totemic Focus, this talent is worth about 20k mana on a 3min CD. Also has a nice flush animation for RP value.
* Telluric Currents(2) : Whenever you don't need to heal, Lightning Bolt will help regen! There are mixed feelings about this talent. While casting 4-5k Lightning bolts is not the main priority of the Restoration Shaman, this talent can help regen mana whenever there is a "dry patch" in damage taken, especially as your gear improves. If you can spare the talent points, this is a great talent for burn phases, especially if the boss takes increased damage in this phase (e.g. Magmaw). A heroic geared Shaman can easily get an average 1000mp5 out of this talent.
* Spirit Link Totem(1) : Unique raid cooldown, with unique meaning "requiring a strategy to get anything out of it". It slightly(10%) reduces damage and allows party/raid members close to death to steal HP from others. Mostly useful in raids, to allow members to take advantage of overhealing on other members, but due to it's short range and the facts that it is a water totem, removing HST/Mana Spring and being placed right behind your back, this talent will greatly favor larger groups such as 25man raids, BGs or large world PvP groups.

* Tidal Waves(3) : CH & RT grant you ~43% Haste(-30% cast time) or 30% Crit on resp. HW/GHW or LS. A great talent for all healing styles. This talent allows you to vary your repertoire by weaving in Riptides or Chain Heals while tank healing or spot heal that one person being low while AoE healing. Mastering this talent is what makes a good Shaman healer.
* Blessing of Eternals(2) : Healing players that are 'wounded' will guarantee (or give an increased chance on AoE heals) an Earthliving proc. More useful in Cataclysm, but still not as useful as you would want. Earthliving is better suited to top off people that do are not in danger of dying. This talent is also taking the AoE reduction ... twice! Rather than the 85% you think it should have on AoE spells, it only gets 21.25% or 1/4th of what it 'should'. Not really as useful as it appears.

* Riptide(1) : Allows you to cast Riptide (see spells). As said before, instant heal with a nice HoT after it. The most annoying part is the CH-bonus, which actually cuts into overal mana efficiency.


* Elemental Weapon(2) : Flat 212 +healing bonus & Unleash Life buff does 30% more instead of 20%. The gain in +healing is pretty nice, especially as a starter and while UL is not an amazing spell, the buff can help increase GHW efficiency or make Riptide more powerful.
* Improved Shields(3) : Your ES heals for 15% more and getting hit returns 15% more mana. While it no longer affects Imp. Water Shield (now Resurgence), it is still a great talent to buff ES with and is the best choice if you want the talents below.
* Ancestral Swiftness(2) : Instant Ghost Wolf & 15% runspeed. Very powerful talent. the runspeed will allow you to move out of fires a bit quicker, which means you can stop and cast just a bit sooner. And if it's really tight, or you just need to get to the other side of the room to fall in for a healer who d/c'd, died or OOMed, the instant Ghost Wolf will certainly help you out tons as well.
* Totemic Reach(2) : Your totems have up to 12y longer range. This talent looks great on paper, helping you buff people further away. Yet a good totem position solves half the issue and it only really becomes an issue in 25man raids where you are the only person bringing a buff to ranged DPS/healers on the other side of the room. It's most important benefit is probably making Water Totems work up to 39y away.

* Acuity(3) : 3% crit. On everything.(Except HST) Even without considering this talent mandatory, you'll pretty much find yourself picking it up anyway.
* Convection(2) : Damaging spells are 10% cheaper. Mostly used in combination with Telluric Currents and/or Focused Insight for increased mana return/saving.
* Concussion(3) : Your weak damage spells are 6% less weaker than they used to be. Excluding buffing your awesome 3k DPS, only really benefits Telluric Currents and the weakest talent to do so. You should have better options.
* Elemental Warding(3) : Reduces magic damage(read: AoE) you take with 12%. Great survival talent, but does nothing to help your raid group. Ancestral Resolve also does roughly the same for a talent point less.
* Elemental Precision(3) : 3% extra elemental damage and Spirit now also works as Hit rating. Probably the most debated talent amongst Restoration Shamans. With the amount of Spirit you (should) have, this talent basicly guarantees spells to hit. This props up the mana gained from Telluric Currents by ~50% once you start raiding, by increasing average LB damage by ~20-25%. It's only problem is it's position in the Elemental tree, making juicy Enhancement talents such as Ancestral Swiftness unavailable.

Now that you know exactly what everything does, let's build your talent tree!
First, you need to put 31 points into Restoration, like this. Note that I put all the non-essential talent points into Nature's Guardian, so you need to swap those out first with optional talents!
The choice here is totally yours. If you are not completely familiar with Restoration Shamans, you might want to consider easy/passive talents such as Telluric Currents (mana return when you don't need to heal) or Blessing of the Eternals (emergency), although there is no reason to pick up 'active' talents such as Nature's Swiftness (emergency) or Spirit Link Totem (mostly for raiding). In it's current state, Focused Insight is not worth it at all for healing and TC would provide a better "DPS while not healing" synergy.

The next choice is most likely personal one: Elemental vs Enhancement subspec.
Elemental helps you increase your non-healing spells a lot, while Enhancement helps with indirect buffs & movement issues.
As of 4.1, interrupt spells no longer miss, so the Elemental subspec has taken a hit in popularity. Regardless, it is still a viable build for players who prefer a bit of hybridism.
Note: This is an 'offensive healer' build, which is focused on pure throughput stats & gets it's mana regeneration from it's offensive part. It works pretty well in heroics and normal raid fights, but heroic fights probably won't allow too much free time to cast LBs.
Most guides will most likely advise the Enhancement subspec instead. It will provide more mobility than a boot enchant can ever give you (and allows you to enchant 50 Haste/Mastery instead) and grants 'passive' gains on the first tier.
Note: In this spec, especially while raiding, TC is not as strong. Consider the mana gain (especially in burn/dmg buff phases) vs the extra mobility & enh talent gains.

3.2. Glyphs

Prime Glyphs:
* Earth Shield: 20% extra healing done by Earth Shield
* Earthliving: 20% extra healing done by Earthliving
* Flametongue Weapon: 2% spell crit while FT is active
* Lightning Bolt: 4% extra damage done by Lightning Bolt
* Riptide: 40% longer HoT
* Water Shield: 50% extra passive regeneration on Water Shield

The Glyph of Flametongue Weapon might look interesting when you're starting out with 15% crit chance, but you should really try to avoid it. The loss in +healing alone nullifies the gain, and you won't be able to use Unleash Elements as a heal anymore. Similarly, the Glyph of Lightning Bolt does not add enough damage to advocate it's use for Telluric Currents. That leaves you with 4 options: Earth Shield, Earthliving, Riptide & Water Shield.
If you are starting out in heroics, you will almost certainly want to go for Water Shield, Earth Shield & Riptide, which will help a lot on mana regen and over-time healing. Once you are comfortable on mana, you can drop Water Shield for Earthliving or, if you need the 177mp5 in raids, drop ES (as pure raid healer) or Riptide (as pure tank healer). Generally speaking though, Earthliving, Earth Shield and Riptide will be your top 3 raiding choice.

Major:
* Chain Heal: The initial heal does 10% less, but each jump does 80,5% of the previous one (70% * 115%)
* Healing Stream Totem: HST now includes Resistance Totem (195 res to Fire, Frost & Nature)
* Healing Wave: Healing others with HW also heals you for 20% of the healing done. Scales with crits and can crit independantly on top of that!
* Totemic Recall: You now regain 75% of the initial costs on recalling totems.

Major glyphs are not so clear-cut. Obviously, you'll want GoHST to reduce AoE damage, especially in instances & 10man raids. Next to that you'll also want to take Healing Wave glyph if you're just starting out, because in current environments, you will rarely find an encounter where you take no damage at all. You can drop this once you do a lot of progress raiding and you switch more to GHW,CH, etc. So far for the 'mandatory' glyphs.
Chain Heal glyph looks really great at first sight, but remember that the jumps are not 85% (70% + 15%) but 80,5% (70% * 115%). You still get a 5,69% overall healing increase on 4 targets, but the gain on 3 targets is <1% and on 2 targets even a loss of nearly 5%. (If it was 85% per jump, you would see up to 13,22% increase) The major use of this glyph is probably increasing the lowest jump with nearly 37%, providing more survival for that person. Totemic Recall is really worth little mana over an entire fight, because any fight under 5/7min where you do not need to move, you will not even have to recall any totems, making this glyph useless!
The best runner-up is probably Glyph of Stoneclaw, which allows you to shield yourself every 20s for 16572 damage, at the cost of 1s GCD and using up your Earth Totem slot (rarely an issue in 25m raids).
You may also opt to take utility/PvPish glyphs such as Hex, Grounding Totem or Ghost Wolf, which really don't help you keep your team alive (except maybe Hex), but make your life in Azeroth a bit easier

Minor:
Really does not matter what you take, no Glyph here has any impact on your healing job.

Make sure your Glyphs are complementing your talents. For example, this build is a complete movement build. It focuses on mobility, indirect heals/buffs such as Earth Shield & Riptide, and countering totem range issues. On the other hand, this alternative focuses on burning through fights. It has far more focus on direct healing output, using boss DPS phases (such as Magmaw, Maloriak, ...) to regen tons of mana through Telluric Currents. Ofcourse nobody is stopping you from speccing both specs. Don't be afraid to test some minor tweaks in your build, see what help you play your way the best!



4. Healing Styles

Although there is no more "max HPS rotation" like in WotLK (which totally disregarded mana efficiency), there are plenty of tricks to polish up your healing techniques, which can truly make the difference in the long run.
1) ALWAYS keep up Earth Shield and Riptide on a tank. If you are purely raid healing, you can let ES consume all of it's charges, but in any other situation, you'll want to make sure you get that 18% extra healing on there! And while Riptide is your most efficient heal, you also want to keep it up on your tank because the HoT procs Ancestral Healing, making Riptide the best choice in keeping up this great damage reduction buff.
2) Healing Stream Totem is the best & most efficient HoT you have. Especially glyphed & talented, HST easily provides up to 3k HPS on your party (600 per member) and roughly 15% magic damage reduction on top of that! And all it costs is a single GCD!
3) When possible, try time use Riptide/Chain Heal every 3rd or 4th cast to maximize Tidal Waves uptime.

4) Starting in heroics, use following priorities:
a) Earth Shield & Riptide HoT on the tank
b) GHW/HS tank when <50%
c) Heal(ing Wave) party members to >50% (don't forget yourself!)
d) Heal tank to >80% HP
e) If you have the mana, heal party up to ~80% with Riptides, else ...
f) Lightning Bolt!! (Don't OOM yourself if you don't have TC though)
g) /dance
Remember to allow HST, Earthliving, Riptide & Ancestral Awakening to top off everyone, any DPS that can move out of fires doesn't need to be at max HP all the time (and those that can't will most likely die anyway)
Especially Riptide is useful, because Tidal Waves will give you the lost cast time back over the next two HW/GHW you cast. Because of Riptide's efficiency, you'll want to learn to maximize this synergy.
Extra Pro Tip: Hex, Bind Elemental and/or Wind Shear can help you by reducing the damage your tank/party needs. Don't be afraid to interrupt when you can, and offer your CC should you feel the tank could use the damage reduction. Especially Bind Elemental is useful, because it can be re-cast as much as you want, interrupting any cast in the process, regardless if regular interrupts work! This tactic can in some rare & exceptional cases be used to totally prevent all damage the Elemental does, although it does prevent you from casting healing spells at the same time.

4) Raid healing is pretty similar, although you will see more use of Greater Healing Wave instead of 'normal' HW, which means Unleash Life becomes more useful on movement. And because of Earthliving, Healing Rain becomes very powerful on those grouping-up mechanics, especially in 25man raids, where the Earthliving gained from HR can do up to half the healing of what HR does itself!
5) The best job for a Restoration Shaman currently is being the filler or sniper healer. This means you generally let the Paladins & Disc Priests fill up the tank healing jobs first, let Holy Priests and Druids do the raid healing and you will simply fill in wherever needed. That leaves you with healing whatever is currently being smacked on the most. This will allow the best Tidal Waves synergy (by letting you use Riptide or Chain Heal every 3rd cast without wasting it) and still makes use of your Earth Shield and RT/AH combo.

If you are having mana issues, ask yourself; Did I have Water Shield up 100%? Did I use any GHW or HS where I could've used a HW or two instead? Could I have used Mana Tide twice in the fight if I used it earlier? Did I get the full effect out of Healing Rain and/or Chain Heal and if not, was it because the DPS was spread out while they shouldn't or should I have used single-target heals instead? Always be prepared to improve yourself and remember that as long as you have a self-reflecting and open mind, actual experience will teach you more than any guide can teach you.

[Airowird]

5. Detailled Math

1. Mastery vs Crit & Haste
1 Mastery = up to 3,0% healing done.
Let's start with assuming that Ancestral Awakening is in effect. What HP does your tank need to be for Mastery to take over crit?
Or in math: 3% * HP deficit =?= 1% * (100% + 60%)
HP Deficit = 1,6% / 3% = 53,33%
For those that don't understand geek language:
When your tank is at 46,67% HP or less, Mastery rating will be more valuable than crit rating for pure output.
For Earthliving, Healing Rain, etc. this is 66,67%
If you have the Revitalizing metagem these numbers become resp. 44,07% & 64,67%

If you use the same comparison for Haste rating, you find out that:
3% * HP deficit =?= 1,4%
HP deficit = 1,4% / 3% = 46,67%
Or: Mastery throughput overcomes Haste when your target is at 53,33% HP
This makes Haste generally the best HPS stat, but remember that it does cost mp5.

Add those two together and a rough generalization is that Mastery is 'expected' to be working at the 50% HP mark.

2. Haste Caps:
In order to understand how important these softcaps are, you must know how the game decides if you can have an extra HoT tick:
1) Take the base amount of ticks (e.g. 6)
2) Multiply this number with your Haste, include Wrath of Air (e.g. 9.73% Haste -> 0.0973 * 6 = 0.5838)
3) Round this number to the nearest integer. In case you are unsure: if the first digit is 0-4, round down, else round up. (e.g. 3.5xxx -> 4)
4) This is the amount of ticks you receive extra.

Shaman Spells:
You only have 3 spells that gain extra ticks from Haste:
Earthliving: 4 ticks base
Healing Rain: 5 ticks base (the first tick is instant and does not 'scale' with Haste)
Riptide: 5 ticks base, usually glyphed to 7 ticks.
On top of that, the lowest cast times you have that can be capped are 1.5s (GCD) and 1.75s (Tidal Waves on (G)HW)
The following numbers assume you have Glyph of Riptide, use the Healing Rain numbers if you use the base spell.

Haste> tick gains
 262 > +1 Riptide
 610 > +1 Healing Rain
 915 > +1 Earthliving
2004 > +2 Riptide
3049 > +2 Healing Rain
3746 > +3 Riptide
3964 > +2 Earthliving
5489 > +3 Healing Rain, +4 Riptide & GCD cap
7013 > +3 Earthliving
7231 > +5 Riptide
7928 > +4 Healing Rain
8538 > TW Cap

Here are the caps for when Bloodlust is active:

Haste> tick gains
  94 > +2 Earthliving
1267 > +3 Healing Rain, +4 Riptide & GCD cap
2440 > +3 Earthliving
2607 > +5 Riptide
3143 > +4 Healing Rain
3612 > TW Cap

Note that after the first tick, the Haste Rating required per extra tick is the same (rounding excluded)
As you can see, there is a large gap once you hit 916 Haste Rating, which is what most Shamans tend to consider as the first 'softcap'. If you are focusing on Haste more, try aiming at 1267, which gives you that extra bit during Bloodlust.
Gearing past TW cap is strongly discouraged, as any Haste past that point grants substantially less increase in output.

6. Spreadsheet
What would I be without my spreadsheets?
Resto Shaman v4.1.zip

Basicly, I expanded on the math above and built a file that allows me to check the actual value of stats based on current gear & spells cast in a fight (e.g. from a log). Here is a short explanation of all the tabs:

1. Gear & Talents:
* Basic Armoury stats, talents, glyphs, buffs, ... settings.
* Also some extra data on HoTs/ticks & your total +% healing.
2. Abilities:
* Most of the top titles should speak for itself.
* Total hit/crit do not count in Mastery, Average Cast does. Average also includes glyphs etc.
* Mana Cost includes mana returns as well.
* HPSC & HPM are Healing Per Second (Casting) and Healing Per Mana.
* Option to add Unleash Life gain from next heal to it as well (to see it's total healing gain)
* RT+CH gain: How much healing CH gets from consuming a Riptide, calculated in ticks.
* Min #HR targets: the amount of HR targets you need to equal a cast of CH in efficiency. Easy tool to see which spell is more efficient in AoE situations.
* Lightning Bolt numbers: for Telluric Currents purposes.
* Riptide Totals: Gives you an idea how ticks influence Riptide cast numbers. Good for tank healing 'rotations'.
* Bottom left: some left-over interesting numbers.
* Bottom right: Table to calculate EL gain from a HR cast. Based on the proc chance in the yellow cell, shows gain on AoE casting.
* Complete bottom: Small table to compare the actual numbers of the CH glyph vs without, should you care.
3. Stat Values:
* 3 tables for HPM, HPSC & mp5 (12 Mana per Minute Casting = 1mp5 assuming you don't need to move)
* Only non-0 stats are added, as Haste always gives 0 HPM & Mastery gives 0 mp5.
* Best/Worst speaks for itself.
* Bottom line: LB gains from Telluric Currents, in per cast and mp5/MpMC.
4. HEP:
* Probably the most useful tab of all.
* Based on the information you fill in in the yellow cells, the bottom two tables show the gain from stats. Weights can be adjusted (default are based on crit values).
* Middle of the screen shows extra data, such as time you actually spent casting & Riptide/CH numbers, to parse logs easier.
* Right hand side of the screen: stat comparison. e.g. if it says 1 Crit = 0.6 Mastery & 0.4 Spirit, this means that 100 Crit rating on an item is exactly the same to 100 Mastery on an other reforged partially to Spirit (which would result in 60 Mastery & 40 Spirit). If the total is larger than 1, this basicly means that it costs more stat points to get the same result, while less would mean the stat is not as efficient. For example, Intellect usually hangs around 2 as total stat value, which means a 40 Int enchant is worth more than 60 of another stat.
* Note that Haste Rating numbers here count with partial HoT ticks rather than discreet numbers. This will make Haste slightly better than it should when you are not near a Haste cap.

7. Thank You
... to TankSpot for giving the community a place to discuss theorycrafting in a decent manner.
... to other authors for inspiring me to write this guide.
... to my fellow theorycrafters for keeping me on my virtual toes during the construction of this guide.
... to you, the reader, for taking the time to learn about the Shaman class.

[Bashal]

Thanks for this, was looking for something solid that made sense to me.

Edit: and I like how you've presented this. It isn't a cookie cutter ideal, just "this is what you'll get if you do this".

[Mmiz]

Nice work War.
Personally I'd like to see you elaborate more on haste as a stat. cause haste (if you're smart) can also grant you spare time. and : spare time=Lightning bolts=mana

eksample:
So I'm currently finding myself not reforging much if I'm going to reforge later it will probably be critt to haste or mastery(when you are at a sweet spot for critt)

For 5 mans I'm also finding that using: healing surge, rain, rt, es and the rare ghw. Free's up some dps time, where I can regen mana and help kill stuff.
(doing this I've been able to gain more mana, than I use on a pull. Even in pugs, long as I know the fights)

I ended up scrapping my plans(on a guide), and are far behind on theory crafting atm. After having a month without wow due to trouble switching isp.

Edit:
I'll probably have more to add next week when I have started raiding.

[Airowird]

Sorry for the slow update, been kinda busy last couple of days.

The problem with Telluric Currents is that the mana return is not enough to allow excessive spell usage.
1% Haste = 1 LB every 240 seconds. Spirit surely gives you more regen over a fight than that?

I'll update the guide more to go a bit more in-depth at the healing style & spell choices, but between farming heroics, raids & professions, working and doing tons of school tasks and projects that all have deadlines within the next week, I'm kinda strapped on spare time atm :P

[Errvalunia]

Nice work War.
Personally I'd like to see you elaborate more on haste as a stat. cause haste (if you're smart) can also grant you spare time. and : spare time=Lightning bolts=mana

eksample:
So I'm currently finding myself not reforging much if I'm going to reforge later it will probably be critt to haste or mastery(when you are at a sweet spot for critt)

For 5 mans I'm also finding that using: healing surge, rain, rt, es and the rare ghw. Free's up some dps time, where I can regen mana and help kill stuff.
(doing this I've been able to gain more mana, than I use on a pull. Even in pugs, long as I know the fights)

I ended up scrapping my plans(on a guide), and are far behind on theory crafting atm. After having a month without wow due to trouble switching isp.

Edit:
I'll probably have more to add next week when I have started raiding.

LB gives you terrible regen compared to just sitting around on the 5-second rule. If you have extra time, take advantage of Focused Insight to use a Flame Shock to buff your next direct heal.

As far as regen stats go:
SPIRIT -- more mana, obviously.
HASTE -- makes you cast *more spells* in a *smaller window of time* and your regen may not be able to keep up. Stacking haste is only a good idea when your resource is GCDs as it was in ICC.
CRIT -- Provides mana through IWS, provides awesome extra smart heals and damage mitigation... I love crit, I do. And now that health pools are huge and a crit isn't necessarily all overheal? Awesome. A crit heal will save me from casting another heal right away, and thus save mana.
INTELLECT -- instead of making your heals FAST, why not make them BIG? This way you heal for more and have to spend less time frantically healing because you're confident in your ability to drop a healing bomb when it's needed. Also provides more regen from replenishment etc etc, AND if you're actually going to use Telluric Currents this will give you a HARDER HITTING LB and therefore MORE MANA.

Intellect > Haste for mana-hungry healers, hands down.

[Mmiz]

Yes it gives less regen. But you're making the fight shorter at the same time, So you will need to heal less as well. I'm not even sure its possible to do proper math on how effective it is.
There is no 5s rule anymore.
I dont think this is for everyone as it means you need to be smart about you're healing.(stacking haste.. you get more powerful but its also easier to destroy you're self)
One things for sure thought standing around not using lb is a waste, and totally wrong.

Intelect is the best stat yes also for this. But you cant reforge to intel.(so no point in thinking about it)

[Bashal]

I'm finding at the moment, anyway, that I don't have the time to spare to throw in LBs or shocks very often... so I specced out of those talents in favor of more straight-up healing talents.

They may be more attractive options later.

[Reyntrannin]

Several people have brought up Telurric Currents already, but has anyone already run the numbers on it? Is it a necessary talent or just a place to dump points while moving farther down the tree? From teh performance i've had with it, I'm only getting about 10% more mana per cast than I use casting LB, but I'ev also not put much time into my shammy yet, either.

[Errvalunia]

It's supposed to be more or less "mana neutral" and make it so you can play around with pew pew while you're bored. All of the healing classes have similar mechanics that allow them to do some damage, like Druids can talent for free Wrath casts

[Airowird]

On average, the mana return is about an average of 400-800 (depending if you went Elemental off-spec), which includes misses & crits.
On bosses with extra damage debuffs, this can go up to 2k and more though.
Especially in raids, where bosses have healing gaps, TC comes in quite handy to restore some mana.

Edit: Think XT/Magmaw Heart phases, you get 3.5-4k mp5, more with BL and you are actually helping DPS!

[Tsy]

Thanks a lot for the guide. I have a couple of questions in general.

First off - armory is here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...dan/tsy/simple
Don't mind the gems and enchants - I used what was available, basically.

My first question is I see a lot of talk about Telluric Currents. While I understand the use and appeal of the spell, I don't understand where people are taking points out of to get this talent. Do they skip Focused Insight for it? Acuity? Ancestral Swiftness? Improved Water Shield?

Perhaps I place too much value on crit, it just hurts to go from ~50% in WotLK to ~20% now. It just seems that the output of our (or at least my) spells are so poor that I'm looking for that cheap fix. I'm certainly going to be re-tweaking my gems and enchants before my guild really starts up it's 25 man raiding, but perhaps I should re-tweak my reforging options, too.

I guess that previous paragraph wasn't posed in the form of a question, but there is an underlying one there. I think I'm starting to see that, similar to my early T7 days, stacking intellect is better than stacking any other stat. Does anyone else have a similar opinion?

[Bashal]

My take on FI and TC is that they are more PvP-oriented. Perhaps I'll feel different when I have more gear, or come across an encounter where they seem more useful, but as it is in heroics with my current gear, I can't afford to spend time using lightning bolt or shocks... I need to just focus on healing.

If FI worked with wind shear (which apparently it doesn't) I might feel different about FI, since I do sometimes do interrupts, since it saves me the mana cost of having to heal the resultant damage.

I think at lower crit levels, acuity is a good talent. When our gear is better and our crit is much higher than it is now, I'll probably drop acuity in favor of something else -- although to be honest, you probably aren't horrible if you skip it now, even.

[Airowird]

I dropped Focused Insight for that last point in Nature's Blessing & Telluric Currents. The only gain of FI I see over using Unleash Elements is probably Healing Rain, but I find in most fights I can rarely get the full 10s out of that spell(Not to mention I'ld need to know 4s in advance if AoE is incoming and 2s in advance where people are going to be).

"Stacking" Intellect (in the form of gems & trinkets) is the best option, because of the Spell Power component really. On top of the Replenishment & crit gains ofcourse

I'll work out the rest of the guide this weekend hopefully, if I'm not too smashed from the christmas parties :P

[Tsy]

Thanks to the both of you for your replies - always nice to get some differing opinions on these matters!

I think I'm going to try something crazy and drop Improved Water Shield and see what that does, and then put those two points into TC.

Maybe also replace my Riptide Glyph with a Water Mastery Glyph, but only if the loss of IWS is more than I expect it to be.

[Airowird]

Did a small update on the stats after reconsidering the effects and working on the talents & styles right now.

[Mmiz]

Personally I've dropped points in totemic focus. Ancestral resolve and natures guardian(well that's the talents I have not taken at this point)
I do raid 25 mans with more than 1 shaman and most buffs covered by others anyway.

[Airowird]

* Totemic Focus also works on Mana Tide Totem. That's about 8k mana you miss there though.
* Ancenstral Resolve is for PvP. If you're taking damage in raids, stop casting & move out of the fire!
* Nature's Guardian has always been either a PvP talent or just completely useless

PS: Can I quote that last bit on the realm forums as to why 25mans are easier?? ^_^

[Mmiz]

About most buffs bring coverd in 25? Hehe i Think everyone knows that and if they don't they're input is useless IMO
I do believe in separating 10 and 25 thought cause I believe u can newer make it the same some fights will be easier or harder on 10 and 25 alternating.

Back on topic yeah if I'm taking anny other talent totemic is probably the only. I'm left with a feeling that when we are in t11+ gear mana won't be a factor as long as healing is done "correct". (that goes for 25m tale might be different on 10m... Or I might have to go back on it when we are there)