Crit and Haste and Regen, OH MY!

The question comes up often -- What stats do I stack? I've been picking up all this crit gear, but now it seems everything is coming with haste! What do I do?!

Honestly, there is no "here's what to do" answer. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. It all really depends on what you do. There are three schools of thought as far as stats go:

1) Haste\Regen -- Haste is a truly God-like stat for chain heal spam. Starting Naxx, haste was awesome. There was so much chain healing to do. With enough haste, you can pump out chain heals in under two seconds, without care to where they're actually going. However, like everything, there is a balance. The quicker your spell, the more spells you will cast in a given amount of time, the more mana you will burn. So typically, with massive haste, you'll need massive regen (Mp5 *while casting*) to back it up. So mostly CH spam raid-healing? Go haste\regen.

2) Crit\SP -- If you do a lot of tank healing, you can end up with some gigantic health bars to keep full. When your tank takes a huge hit, you need to get him from 10% to 100% now. You're going to need a lot of crit and spell power to get it done. Aside from that, your tank will pick up some extra armor (or damage reduction in 3.2) when you do pull off a crit. So the more crit, the less damage taken by your tank, the less healing you have to do. And, with talent points spent in the right places, your crits can become mana regen, which means those big heals you're firing off at the tank won't be quite so expensive.


But, the reality of it all is, unless you find yourself in a situation where you're all geared up, and can start collecting two sets of gear, you're going to be picking up whatever gear you can that is an upgrade. That leads us to #3:

3) Balance -- I'll let you in on a bit of a shaman secret -- the true role of the shaman class is healer support and heal sniping. Like it or not, that's it. By definition, we are the jack of all trades, master of none. Our job is not to be on top of the meters, to be the top healer, to be the best out there. Our job is to support the other healers in the raid. Our job is to fill the gaps, to pick up where others fall behind, to fill in wherever needed. Given that, it's very difficult (and often incorrect) to say "I will only raid heal" or "I will only tank heal", so why stack stats that will benefit only one and not the other? Mix up your stats a bit, so you can get big, fast heals out to everyone in the raid, and you'll be a much more well-rounded healer.



I hear you ... "Wait wait wait. What about regen?"

Regen -- Every time I see a shaman with any Spirit gear, I get the sudden urge to kick a kitten (calm down, I wouldn't actually kick a kitten). Spirit for shamans is worse than worthless. At any time, should a shaman see spirit gear, the correct action would be to turn away, and run screaming like a little school girl. Shaman want Mana Per 5 seconds while casting. And a good number to have? Take whatever happens to be on your gear, good enough. If you still have mana trouble, there's food, elixirs, and flasks to help out with regen.