New Totem

Ever since the Tier 9 gear went live, I've eyed the new "Tier 9" totem -- Totem of Calming Tides. For a long time, I've poo-pooed it. I've never been a big fan of "chances". This one happens to have a 70% chance to proc (trigger), with aparently no internal cooldown.

Equip looks like this:
Each time you cast Chain Heal, you have a chance to gain 234 spell power for 15 sec.

Compare to the Steamcaller's Totem, dropped from Flame Leviathan or purchased with Emblems of Conquest:
Increases the base amount healed by your chain heal by 243.

Initially, the question is, why would I give up a sure thing in the Steamcaller's Totem for a 70% chance? That question is what disuaded me from picking it up when it first hit the vendors. But now, with the whole "try before you buy" thing (IE: can return for a refund), I decided to pick it up and take it for a spin around the block (or heroics, in my case).

What did I find? The totem is actually pretty darn sexy. The "dumb" math without digging into the real math says this --

Steamcaller's Totem -- +243 on first target, +97.2(40% of 1st) on 2nd, +38.88 on 3rd, +15.552 on 4th == +394.632 total per Chain Heal cast.

Totem of Calming Tides (triggerred) -- +439.92 (234 * 1.88 SP modifier) on first target, +175.968(40% of 1st) on 2nd, +70.3872 on 3rd, 28.15488 on 4th == +714.43008 total per Chain Heal cast or +439.92 per any other heal cast.

Again, this is just "dumb" math and not taking into consideration all the other cast time modifiers, base healing, or any other formula.

The reality is, the Steamcaller's Totem is only good for Chain Heals. If you are primarily using Chain Heal, then with the 70% chance, Totem of Calming Tides will be up almost always. And, you'll be able to get in your Lesser Healing Waves or Riptides and take advantage of the totem. If you're tank healing? An occasional Chain Heal to gain the totem effect and get your larger Healing Waves off. Turns out, it's a sweet totem, and well worth the cost of 26 emblems.

Long Time, No Post

It's been a couple weeks, time for an update.

I'm hoping in the next week to be able to pick up my ilvl 245 ring, the Heartmender Circle. I'm about a week's worth of daily heroics away from buying it. If I can manage to squeeze into some raids along the way, it will shorten the time a bit.

I've also purchased the pattern for Black Chitin Bracers. Also ilvl 245, and they have a socket. I am two Crusader Orbs short, but with prices falling, shouldn't be too long before I am able to grab them. Now... just have to find a leatherworker who is willing to make them in exchange for a free epic pattern.

Together, those two items should raise my gear score by 58 points, putting my score in the 2560+ range. At the moment, though, that would only bring me back into the top 20 restoration shamans in the realm. And by the time I get them, it will likely not even do that for me. I'm probably doomed to be in the 20s for quite some time.

I am, for the time-being, once again Headmaster (Guild Master) of The Order of the Phoenix. I'm hoping there is not as much turmoil as there was the last time. At least the guild has some excellent officers, it does help.

And how's the whole haste gear thing going? I love it. It works quite well. I still will end up on the verge of running out of mana at times, but it's not bad. If I can continue picking up more haste gear, I'd like to be able to get my Chain Heal down to 2 seconds without the help of a totem -- but that's going to take a lot more haste.

Gear

I have at last been able to replace my shoulders. I picked up Nobundo's Spaulders of Conquest for 30 emblem of triumph. They are iLvL 232 Tier 9 shoulders. Next I'll either be picking up the emblem ring, or the Tier 9 gloves.

What the shoulders allowed me to do was maintain my haste while adding intellect back into my stats. And now, at this point, there is very little left for me in Ulduar. 25-man Razorscale continues to deny me my Guiding Star. There are some rings, and possibly trinkets, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on either. Aside from that, there's really nothing left outside of hard modes.

Stats Again

So I've been playing around, and am at a pretty good spot for haste+regen. Chain Heal is down to a 2-second cast. I'm ending encounters just on the brink of running out of mana. It's all good. But I want better gear, and that's going to disrupt things a bit. So where do I go with stats now?

I need to lose some crit. I want my crits to be around 30-35%. Currently, they're at around 40-50%. Nice for mages, but I think I can get more use out of other stats at this point.

Haste is right around the place I want it to be. A two-second Chain Heal is quite powerful. At this point, though, I'll start getting less point-for-point out of haste. So stacking more haste is going to lose value. New shoulders and gloves I'll be picking up will be haste rather than crit. What that means is that I'll lose some crit (fine with me), and gain a bunch of haste. It will allow me to replace some of the haste gems I've got.

So after haste and crit, what's left? Spell Power. Once I'm able to pick up the haste shoulders and gloves, I'll be able to start replacing haste gems with spell power gems. I'd like to get my Spell Power to 2700-2800 self-buffed. It's around there where we go full circle and start looking at crit again... but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.