Well, since everyone else has made some sort of how-to, I suppose I will as well. So welcome all to the world of the restoration shaman. This is a pretty basic checklist for new players or anyone who wants to know what healy shammies are looking like these days.

First things first…
Before every raid, say a prayer and lay out offerings of virgins and delectable foods for the WoW Gods and hope they accept so that you won’t be targeted with random abilities, die, and have Faires yell at you on vent. This is critical to your success as a resto shaman.

Second, know your stats…
(Insert stacking int jokes)
As explained better on the very comprehensive EJ post (http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t24796-shaman_restoration/) healing equivalency points are used to quantify the value of each stat a shaman cares about. Here is what you basically need to know:

Haste (1.5) > SP (1) = MP5 (1) > Crit (0.8) > Int (0.6)

Haste
In competitive, progression raiding the most important stat for a shaman is haste. Even with Brain Heal, we are unable to keep up with good druid and priest healers. This is partially because movement fights cost us precious seconds to cast our best heal, and druids/priests have superior aoe healing abilities. We stack haste in order to keep up with them and get the most through put so we don’t sit uselessly in the raid. ICC has introduced a fair amount of random damage and constant aoe damage that has really made haste even better.
So this begs the question, how much haste is enough haste? So far, the answer I’ve come up with is you can, literally, never have enough. The BiS list for normal and heroic ICC gear with intelligent socketing will get you to just over the soft haste cap which is 38.7% haste (where the GCD = 1) which equates to a ~1.7 second chain heal cast. If you ignored a few socket bonuses and went straight haste in everything (and are a JC) you can push further past it; I’m not convinced this is necessary but every shaman has their opinion (in b4 more int jokes).

Spell Power
So shaman are pretty cool in that there isn’t really a spell power cap for us. Due to the nature of Brain Heal, the more sp the better for those getting the last hits of the cast. Shaman also naturally heal for less than other classes. A 1.5 sec cast from a priest in half my gear will heal for just as much as my 1.5 sec cast. I want to say a druid’s nourish is also more powerful of an individual heal. SP is also going to buff your meter padding ability, healing stream totem. Best stat to go for if you feel comfortable with your haste rating.

MP5/Crit
What, MP5 is equal to SP? Yes, apparently it is, but you don’t often get to see MP5 on resto shaman any more. It makes sense for it to be so useful because with more haste you need more regen to stay above water. So why, you might ask, are shaman BiS all haste/crit gear? The answer is simple – there is more crit on gear than mp5. Crit is another significant regen mechanic for shaman because of the amazing water shield fix (that made int stacking obsolete) a few patches ago. However, it’s not a constant regen so it takes more to equal the level of MP5. Brilliantly, most gear has an abundance of crit, while the mp5 pieces hover around 50.  More than 60 crit is > 50 mp5 and a majority of the pieces have that, so they are rated higher overall. So when choosing upgrades, consider MP5 vs. Crit to see what sort of improvement you might really be getting.

Intellect
And yes, finally, intellect. A good percentage of our overall mana regen and provides sp and crit. This used to be the way to go and I still value int for longer, more intense fights. But it’s no longer viable in raid situations. :(

Third, figure out why you are useful…
Chances are it’s not because you’re the best aoe healer in the bunch. A good shaman can out heal a fair druid and priest, but once they improve, you’ll find yourself falling behind. Shaman are mostly good for a few things synergy wise:

Totems – Depending on the # of shaman in your raid and the composition, you could be bringing multiple buffs or none at all. In general you will be needed for Wrath of Air and Healing Stream Totem unless there is an elemental shaman in the raid.

Mana Tide – As heroic modes approach, this will become an even more important asset to the healing group. Make sure you monitor where the healers are at mana wise; if you see a druid or paladin low, chances are it’s time to tide. Sometimes a priest will Hymn at the same time for more mana back and that is pretty sweet.

Earth Shield – May not seem like it, but ES is a great buffer for tanks and a very useful spell to help out tank healers (paladins). It will be a good % of your overall healing if you use it right.

Ancestral Healing – Yes, I am putting this here. 10% physical damage reduction is quite nice every fight. Priests are putting it up, but shaman are quite good at spreading the buff around as well.

Cont.—->

Fourth, know your spec…
Speccing a shaman is pretty easy, though some people really pick weird talents. Here are the base ones you should have for any raiding situation:

Enhance Tree
Ancestral Knowledge – Int is good, right?
Thundering Strikes – 5% Crit is awesome
Improved Shields – Water Shield is one of our main regen sources, so this is an important talent to have

Restoration Tree
Improved Healing Wave – Of the two you have to choose from, IHW has more long run benefit despite never really using HW
Tidal Focus – Makes chain heal less expensive
Improved Water Shield – You would good oom pretty damn fast without this
Tidal Force – Why not?
Ancestral Healing – When you’re chain healing melee, you’re bound to hit the tanks as well. Some fights also have aoe physical damage (Saurfang) and this helps reduce how much they take
Restorative Totems – More mana, more healing, pre req to tide
Tidal Mastery – 5% more crit!
Nature’s Swiftness – Saves lives and allows you to go afk
Purification – Makes CH 10% stronger!
Mana Tide Totem – Everyone will love you
Cleanse Spirit – Because someone has to do it
Blessing of the Eternals – If 4% crit isn’t enough, it will boost your effective healing by … maybe… 0.5%?
Improved Chain Heal – Speaks for itself
Nature’s Blessing – More sp for wearing gear
Ancestral Awakening – This can easily account for 10% of your healing, or very little depending on the fight
Earth Shield/Imp ES – Very good spell that also allows you to afk through heroics
Tidal Waves – Very close to 100% uptime and buffs your single target heals like crazy
Riptide – For sniping heals from all the other classes

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After getting what you need, you should have 6 talent points left. Here are the optional talents that are of most benefit:

Enhance
Elemental Weapons – Great if you have low SP, not so great when you’re packing 3k and might need another talent to boost healing more
Toughness – If you need the stamina and have the points for it, this might be something to consider
Enhancing Totems –Good if you need points in enhance or are the only shaman in the raid

Restoration
Imp Reincarnation – You can die twice as much!
Healing Focus – Not a whole lot of fights have push back, but this talent will make you feel comfortable and confident
Healing Way – There may be a time and place that you will accidentally hit HW instead of LHW, and the number you get from doing that with this talent will make you smile
Nature’s Guardian – A talent worth considering for ICC; it will either keep you from getting two shot, or give you an extra half a second for druid hots to tick

Fifth, pick the right gems & ‘chants…
To make this simple because this post is already long enough with rambling:

Gems - Go with haste in every socket UNLESS you feel confident with your haste value and NEED another stat, like SP.

In solo sockets:
Yellow: Quick King’s Amber
Red: Reckless Ametrine
Blue: Quick King’s Amber (unless you want the bonus or sp or something)

Double sockets:
Y+R - Gem for the bonus with above
Y+B - Gem both Quick’s unless you don’t feel like it
R+B - Why they put this combo I don’t know, but 2 Quick’s is best

Triple sockets:
Hope they are all yellow other wise, make an executive decision on the socket bonus. (Hint: it’s usually a low amount of sp)

Enchanting
Open the AH and search for “Scroll of Enchant” then buy everything with SP (gloves, wrist, weapon).
For helm/shoulder, pick the sp/crit options.
Tuskarr’s Vitality is widely recognized as the best raiding boot enchant.
+23 haste for cloak.
Sapphire Spellthread for legs.
Greater Mana Restoration is considered best for chest. If you want the stam & int, stick with stats.
Intellect for shield.

Finally, make your glyphs matter…
There are two considered “must haves” and a few “if you want it”

Have
Glyph of Chain Heal - Gives you a fourth jump, makes you want to use CH more than you already are
Glyph of Earth Shield - 20% more healing, makes ES an even better buffer

Test out and see if you like
Glyph of Healing Stream Totem - My personal 3rd favorite, and necessary for Anub’arak
Glyph of Riptide - Considered to be the best 3rd choice, but I don’t see the use in it for me, personally
Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave - For when you need to heal the tank
Glyph of Healing Wave - It’ll heal you for quite a bit if you need it

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If you are reading this, congrats! You made it to the end of my ramblings…. for now! I didn’t even start talking about spell choice and “rotations”. Maybe I will save that for a more “advanced” thread.

Disclaimer: I don’t expect everything in here to be perfect, this is just how I feel about Resto and what I have noticed. Healing is an art, not a science; every one does it differently and most argue that they are right. What works for you and keeps the raid alive is all that matters.

Kaelinh - 27 January 2010 07:06 PM

First things first…
Before every raid, say a prayer and lay out offerings of virgins and delectable foods for the WoW Gods and hope they accept so that you won’t be targeted with random abilities, die, and have Faires yell at you on vent. This is critical to your success as a resto shaman.

AMAZING

if you see a druid or paladin low, chances are it’s time to tide. Sometimes a priest will Hymn at the same time for more mana back and that is pretty sweet.

Should probably work to make this happen intentionally if at all reasonable, more mana is always a good thing!

I don’t know you Kaelinh, but I think I love you.

As for tiding, I usually do it when the majority of your group is low.  Back in the day, I know Zurania or Astralis gets innervates like mad, so it sucks tiding when they are pretty much back at full or near full mana.

Of course raiding now could be different, but what do i know? :)

Since I play Elemental main I attempt to get as much sp/haste/crit gear as possible and generally keep a lot of it on for healing (because everyone knows the most important thing is gear score).  At one point my MP5 was 800 w/ water shield+wisdom/manaspring and I was constantly full mana.  Lately I’m around 600 mp5 while raiding and there are fights where I’m constantly scraping the bottom of my mana pool.  The time we two healed festergut in a 10 man sticks out the most, but also ToGC25 healing penetrating cold, I go from full to 0 mana pretty quick, especially when I can’t keep water shield on myself. 

Do you have those problems in your set?  I’ve got some mp5 gear I haven’t bothered to gem and use in my resto set, wasn’t sure if it would make the difference.

We’ve been feeding innervates to DPS, this will probably change with hard modes though.

Typically we shouldn’t have problems running out of mana. The only current fight I have problems going oom on is the Northrend Beasts in ToGC.

My assumption is it will be a bigger issue in hardmodes. I would have a few backup pieces that you can stack with mp5 without sacrificing a lot of spellpower.

Sadmin - 28 January 2010 09:47 AM

Since I play Elemental main I attempt to get as much sp/haste/crit gear as possible and generally keep a lot of it on for healing (because everyone knows the most important thing is gear score).  At one point my MP5 was 800 w/ water shield+wisdom/manaspring and I was constantly full mana.  Lately I’m around 600 mp5 while raiding and there are fights where I’m constantly scraping the bottom of my mana pool.  The time we two healed festergut in a 10 man sticks out the most, but also ToGC25 healing penetrating cold, I go from full to 0 mana pretty quick, especially when I can’t keep water shield on myself. 

Do you have those problems in your set?  I’ve got some mp5 gear I haven’t bothered to gem and use in my resto set, wasn’t sure if it would make the difference.

I haven’t actually hit the bottom of my mana pool lately. I do have two great regen trinkets, one that I pop every time it’s up, and I have mana pots as back up (rarely needed, but I usually hit my endless mana potion at the end of a fight). I’ll check where my combat regen is next time I’m fully buffed, but I think it’s low (possibly 550?). Festergut was probably a fight where you had to use a lot of single target quick spells, which will drop your mana incredibly fast if you aren’t careful - especially with Tidal Waves up constantly.

I notice that as soon as water shield drops off, I get to low mana in roughly 20 seconds. I had a big alert customized with SCT and now Miks; maybe you aren’t noticing WS fall off? There are some fights that do have the random damage and I catch myself healing without WS at random times. However, since you only cast one spell and the occasional on the tank in TOGC25, I’m not sure how you’re going oom. Overhealing the PC target maybe? I haven’t had mana problems on that fight before.

What do you usually heal with, lots of riptides and chain heals with es up?

Zeitgeist - 28 January 2010 01:17 PM

Typically we shouldn’t have problems running out of mana. The only current fight I have problems going oom on is the Northrend Beasts in ToGC.

My assumption is it will be a bigger issue in hardmodes. I would have a few backup pieces that you can stack with mp5 without sacrificing a lot of spellpower.

Hardmodes are going to need even more haste to keep up with moving and healing :(

But the terrible t10 pants that are BiS for the bonus has a ton of regen on it. The difference is ridiculous; if I heal a heroic without them I can go oom by the end, but if I wear them through one I have full mana at the end.

Clyche - 28 January 2010 09:33 AM

I don’t know you Kaelinh, but I think I love you.

WOW CLY YOU SOB HOW CAN YOU LOVE SOMEONE THAT ISN’T ME?!

Powa Auras put a big ass watershield sprite on my screen when its down.  For penetrating cold, I was instructed to do nothing but cast LHW on my target, and not to trigger any other GCD.  So I obeyed that, I know it was a little liberal because there was a 1-2 second break between pen. colds where I could have, but I was nervous and didn’t want to screw up (which I didn’t).  If I healed that in the future, I’d be sure to keep water shield up and use NS as a backup if refreshing it gets me in a tight spot.

power auras is an amazing add-on!!

Haste/mp5 > Haste for blue sockets.

Lellarap - 01 February 2010 04:45 PM

Haste/mp5 > Haste for blue sockets.

For one socket to get the meta.

Otherwise if you do the math, 20 haste = 30 hep

10 haste 5 mp5 = 15 hep, +socket bonus (+5sp, +7sp) = 20/22 hep

These heps you talk about, are equivalent to one spellpower, correct?