Maces Don't Drop

11 Naxx-25 Kel'Thuzad kills -- Torch of Holy Fire drops: 0

5 Ulduar-25 Razorscale kills -- Guiding Star drops: 0

It saddens me that the only thing I've been able to find is a dagger. Shamans don't use daggers!

/vent

3.2 Resto Shamans

3.2 changed a lot with resto shamans... so if you're still spec'ing\gemming\healing as you did in 3.1, you need to do a little catch-up.

1) Talent build changed -- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hZ0xxhZx0euIeoxkrIRt:L0icmz
-- You might notice the lack of elemental weapons. When you're leveling or working your way through 5-mans yet, take 3 points out of Healing Focus and put them in Elemental Weapons for the additional bonus healing. When you're at raid level with appropriate gear, the 45 bonus healing is not worth the talent point cost... it's time to lose it.
-- Also note the glyphs. There are other glyphs available, but this comination will give you a well-rounded balance.

2) Spells:
-- Rotation -- there is none, never was, don't even use that word.
-- Riptide -- A spot heal, a quick top off for DPS. Don't cast it for the Tidal Waves talent's effects alone.
-- Lesser Healing Wave -- Used when you need to heal a lone DPS. Also used when you are raid healing and the raid is spread too far for Chain Heal. It's fine for tank healing up to the point where you start the more advanced raids... but in Ulduar and beyond, no longer used for tank healing.
-- Healing Wave -- This is your tank heal. Don't cast Riptide for the sole purpose of the HW cast time reduction. RT will add a global cooldown, while the tank is waiting for their heal.
-- Chain Heal -- Used when you are raid healing. The new 12.5 yard range makes CH king once again.

3) Gear Stats:
-- The days of stacking Crit+Int are gone. Unfortunately, this is the direction I chose to go in 3.0\3.1 . That means I've been doing a lot of regearing since 3.2 to tone it down a bit.
-- Gear should be balanced. Previously, a person might pick up a lower level haste item to replace crit, or vise-versa. No longer. Your gear set should have a decent amount of crit, haste, and Mp5. No more "stacking" stats in gear sets.
-- With the increased utility of Chain Heal, haste is now the desired stat... but not to the detriment of the others.

4) Gemming:
-- Gem for Intellect until you have no mana issues, then start replacing Int gems with Haste.
-- Socket bonus rule goes like this: Ignore them, unless it will give you more Int or Haste than would be had with a pure yellow gem.
-- Spell Power gems will help with the PUGS who demand large bonus healing numbers. They will be of little use otherwise.
-- If you are more concerned about throughput and actual healing than you are about big numbers on your armory page, do not gem for anything but Int or Haste

Cataclysm

Along with this year's Blizzcon comes the buzz about the next World of Warcraft expansion -- Cataclysm. The expansion is quite a while away yet, aimed at an undisclosed 2010 release date. As such, nothing is a sure thing. Despite this, thanks to Blizzcon, little tidbits of information are spilling out and have piqued some interest. Still, this is a (resto) shaman blog. While there are many cool things around the corner, I'll do my best to keep it on topic. But again ... nothing is certain until its release.

New races and race\class combinations:


The first thing you'll notice is two new races. Horde will have Goblins, Alliance will have Worgen. Goblin Shamans will be possible. Much to my dismay, Worgen Shamans will not be possible. However, Dwarves may now be coupled with the shaman class.

Stat Changes (some of these may happen well before Cataclysm, in patch 3.3 perhaps):

• The 5 second rule might be removed with the changes made to spirit but there isn't any final decision about that. :: I hear you -- wait right there. What does this have to do with shamans? Shamans don't use spirit, noob.
• Spirit is going to be a healer stat only, it won't exist on DPS Gear. Healers need it to regen and other casters don't use it at all. (Other casters will use Intellect for Spell Power) :: More "spirit" info?! Where are we going with this?
• MP5: This will be removed from items and replaced with Spirit. All healers will be given a meditation-like ability. :: What!? NOOOOO. Well, at least we can rely on good 'ol spell power to be there for us.
• Spell Power: Spell Power is being removed from items as well. Don't panic, we'll be improving Intellect so that it provides mana and Spell Power. :: -.-

A couple more points of interest:

• Every healer class can now dispell magic, the niches will [be] other debuffs. :: Shamans are currently unable to dispell magic.
• Developers want shaman to be good AE healers and might buff Chain Heal even more. :: Please wait while I put on some clean pants.
• Sacrificying the group utility of mana tide totem to give it a much better regen is a possibility. :: This means no more group-wide mana regen, but rather a personal regen with more mana return. I could live with that.

New Talent Build

New Talent Build

The difference here is the lack of Elemental Weapons. Elemental Weapons gives a flat 45 bonus healing. Here's why Elemental Weapons had to go:

Previously, one talent build was king -- Chain Heal Build . That was by far the most common because the Healing Way talent was junk. I took the talent for my dual-spec build so I could have a little bit extra when I needed to tank heal. Then comes 3.2 and the new Healing Way talent -- a straight-forward 25% increase to Healing Wave.

All was good, for a while. But since we (the guild and me) started hitting new content, something has become clear -- Chain Heal and Healing Wave are no longer exclusive. That means that in any given encounter, I may need both a full-powered Chain Heal and a full-powered Healing Wave.

So, in walks the new talent build -- a merge between the previously split build that now offers a boost to both Chain Heal and Healing Wave at the same time. At the cost of 45 bonus healing, it's worth it in order to have the heals you need, when you need them.

R.I.P. Crit

In a previous post, I wrote about the stats shaman healers like. There are three different choices for shamans -- heavy crit, heavy haste, or a balance of the two. I've always tried to balance the two, but have leaned closer to the crit side.

As I get further into Ulduar, I am starting to see a new pattern emerge, and am expecting it to continue. The pattern is two-fold. First, MOVE MOVE MOVE. Second, damage spikes that need healed now. Both of these favor haste.

The benefit to crit is actually mana regen. With the right talents, the more often you crit, the more mana you get back. So what's changed? Mp5. Along with patch 3.2, items with Mp5 now return more mana. This means that you really don't need to stack so much crit for regen. It frees you up for -- you guessed it -- haste.

The result. I'm now swapping out crit gear for haste gear. I will also be playing with gems once again, as I find the balance between intellect\regen & haste. Yes, I will be starting to replace intellect gems with haste... something else that was a no-no prior to 3.2 .

Glyphs

There are 5 glyphs that are the most typical for shaman healers.

Majors:

• Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave -- Your Lesser Healing Wave heals for 20% more if the target is also affected by your Earth Shield. :: You want this one if you're doing a lot of tank healing. If raid healing, it's a bit of a waste.
• Glyph of Earth Shield -- Increases the amount healed by your Earth Shield by 20%. :: This one is good whether you are tank healing or raid healing. Why? ES should always be on the tank, so making it heal for more will help out quite a bit.
• Glyph of Chain Heal -- Your Chain Heal heals 1 additional target. :: If you are raid healing, this one is a must-have. A bit of a waste if you're tank healing.
• Glyph of Water Mastery -- Increases the passive mana regeneration of your Water Shield spell by 30%. :: More Mp5 from your water shield, which should always be up. Helps to keep from going OOM.

Minor:

• Glyph of Water Shield -- Increases the number of charges on your Water Shield spell by 1. :: This used to be bigger when crits consumed orbs. But for lack of anything else Minor, this one is still nice for the raid damage you do take.

There are a couple glyphs that others might take, I don't see them being as useful as the glyphs listed above.

Mana Tide: Mana Tide is dropped on occasion. And while more mana from Mana Tide is nice, you're going to take up a glyph slot that should be used by a more powerful glyph.

Healing Stream: There's a reason it's often called "Overhealing Stream". It is a party-only totem. If you happen to be tank healing, and are in the same group as the tank, and can always keep the totem up in range of the tank, it could be useful. Having it tick away on a raid group that's not taking much damage is a waste of a glyph slot.

Earthliving Weapon: An increased chance to trigger the earthliving hot is interesting... the problem though is that the HoT that results is somewhat weak. Not as powerful as, say, chain heal hitting a fourth target.

It's Been a Week!

Well, not a lot going on ... had you fooled for a moment.

Drama! Guild Drama! What else could it have possibly been?

A while back I left the guild I've called home for years, ever since the beginning of its, and my, very existence in WoW. We both started about the same time, and I have watched it grow up to what it has become.

I left because I wanted to raid. The leader of the guild I was raiding with made a sudden declaration one day that only those in his own guild could raid with them. Shortly later, he backed it down (after realizing they wouldn't have enough to sustain on their own, I would assume) saying that nobody outside his guild would be gauranteed a spot. So, whatever, I moved over to the other guild.

Things in that guild started getting rockier, little by little, until last weekend the threat to disband came, followed by mass desertion. Most everyone went and started a new guild. I did not join them. Instead, I returned home.

We seem to have accumulated enough quality people to start our own "progression" 10-man raiding. For the larger, 25-mans, we'll likely team up with the new splinter guild to get some raiding accomplished.

So here's to our new success... wish us luck.

Shaman, Shamen, Shamans

Thought this would be an interesting post. People can get confused about what to call more than one shaman.

Merriam-Webster may be of help here:

Main Entry: sha·man
Pronunciation: \ˈshä-mən, ˈshā- also shə-ˈmän\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural shamans
Etymology: ultimately from Evenki (Tungusic language of Siberia) šamān
Date: 1698
1 : a priest or priestess who uses magic for the purpose of curing the sick, divining the hidden, and controlling events
2 : one who resembles a shaman; especially : high priest 3

So now you know. And it can be pronounced shaw-muhn, shay-mawn, or shuh-mawn (don't call me a she-man please).

Of Paladins and Shamans

So I don't know much about paladin healers. My paladin is a tad bit low yet, and I don't think he will ever heal. But what I've gathered about holy paladins' gear is that Crit + Int is valued above all else. Doing a little reading, it would appear that has changed slightly with 3.2. It now looks like paladin's might start valuing Int + Mp5 more ... wait a minute ... that's what shamans want!

So what do I foresee? Typically Mp5 gear that is shareable by the healers (necklaces, rings, shields, maces, etc) has been viewed as shaman gear, as that's what's of great value to us. This may change, and we may find resto shamans being challenged for gear by holy paladins. Doesn't sound like much fun. :(

3.2 is Here!

3.2 has arrived -- not really news, unless you've been living in a cave (completely possible if you're a troll).

The entire patch was around 400MB, a pretty good size. Took about 5 minutes for me to download. Servers will be down though for at least another hour, but I would bet it will be longer based on past experience.

So what do we get? We get some new tier gear, a new 5-man and 10\25-man raid, a new 40-man battleground, and some new wallpaper. But what's in it for the shaman?! I've said a lot of this before in other posts, and I'm not going to go into everything, just wanted to point out some items of interest to us PvE resto shamans:

Chain Heal: Jump distance increased by 25% to 12.5 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.

Big Big Big. Chain Heal will be used again. What does this mean for stats? Haste Haste Haste.

Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.

Mentioned in a previous post. I think this will be helpful mostly to those mage tanks that don't have a lot of armor to start with. By making a flat damage reduction, armor won't matter.

Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman's Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.

This may make the resto\resto dual-spec obsolete. It will be a major improvement to Healing Wave. No doubt quite a few more shamans will be picking up this previously laughable talent.

Nature's Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.

One word -- macros. I macro Nature's Swiftness into most of my heals. Some will save it for an "Oh @*$&" moment. I usually find that by the time an "Oh @*$&" moment happens, the rest has already gone down hill so far that a single instant heal would not be enough to gather things back up. This, ultimately, will allow more heals to get out during an encounter.

Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.

I was in VoA this week. One other shaman in the raid discovered the dirty little problem with Tidal Waves. It's that Lesser Healing Wave is so fast on its own, with the haste you simply pick up on gear, that when you throw in Tidal Waves you end up hitting a wall on the global cooldown (GCD). What you end up with is a spell that casts faster than it can be used again.

So what this change does is remove the useless haste on Lesser Healing Wave and replace it with some critical strike - something that is always welcome.

Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

Triggers on Chain Heal crits. No more need to refresh because of crit. Win.

Trinkets, Precious Trinkets

Trinkets, in my opinion, are the wildcards of a gear set. With most gear, you get a flat upgrade when you move up the iLevel ladder. But with trinkets, iLevel does not mean everything. Sure, I cringe when I see level 80s running around with level 70 PvP trinkets, so there's a practical limit to what is acceptable. It's often the case, though, that an iLvl 200 trinket may be better for an individual than an iLvl 213 or 219, or more. Trinkets give you that "little bit extra", and should be used to get that "little bit extra" you need.

The trinkets I run with look like this:

Energy Siphon
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 219
Equip: Restores 54 mana per 5 sec.
Use: Increases spell power by 408 for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)

Soul of the Dead
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 213
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 95 (2.07% @ L80).
Equip: Your spell critical strikes have a chance to restore 900 mana.


I will be picking up a new one today:

Darkmoon Card: Illusion
Binds when equipped
Unique-Equipped
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 200
Equip: Increases spell power by 100.
Use: Absorbs 1500 damage for 6 sec. When the shield is removed by any means, you regain 1500 mana. (5 Min Cooldown)


Then, looking at the new PTR loot, (3.2 this week please!) I found a new one and wet myself:

Coliseum 25 Badge Loot Healer Trinket
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+128 Intellect
Requires Level 80
Item Level 245
Use: Increases spell power by 599 for 20 sec. (20 Sec Cooldown)

128 Intellect will be more than awesome. It will be flat out Godly... and purchasable with emblems. I couldn't be happier.