I hate, however, when someone tries to tell me whats the best usage of "wiggle room" i have outside of my cookie cutter builds.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hZ0xxZx0ezIeoxkrIRt:ZcMm This is the most cookie cutter "base" of the resto shaman. I even included minor glyphs for your viewing pleasure.
Now, heres the thing. I intentionally left the glyphs open. Other classes tend to have what I like to call "BiS glyphs" That are without a doubt better than anything else the class offers. Some of them aren't even hard decisions (shadow priest! fire mages!) Resto shamans have what I call the play style oriented glyphs slots available.
25 mans will completely disagree and override you. Chain heal is awesome, they say.
10 man logic will always tell you, no, you hate chain heal. Stop trying to use it, cause there simply is a good time to.
actually my logic will tell you that. I do most of the healing in any attempt now anyways, and it's exactly what I mean. I've glyphed Riptide, Healing Stream, and Healing Wave. I actually intend to get rid of riptide as well, and probably go for water mastery or earth shield.
Here's the thing. I don't notice riptide's extra duration doing anything. If I cast it on the tank, I'll probably be overriding it again anyways. If I cast it on a dps, they'll be at full for most of the ticks. All it allows me is a launching point for chain heal, and I can assure you I rarely have that luxury. I am primarily a tank healer. As I've said before, I do most of the healing on a given attempt.
Let me illustrate a picture of our recent ICC raid.
We have me; Resto shammy. Then Holy paly, tree druid, Prot paly, bear druid, DK, Rogue, Warlock, Hunter, and wild card A. (actually dk should be wild card B, but its always a dk. ALWAYS)
during trash I healed far less than tree and paly. I was still trying to figure out grid, and had it set up as my baby druid. Therefore I had it set to track rejuv, life bloom, and regrowth. I cannot tell you how comfortable I was healing that day. I saw rejuvs on everyone. I never had to wonder "hey, does this person need help?" Never. I pretty much sat there and riptide'd when I got bored, and CH if someone was getting low. I was my most comfortable ever during ICC.
During marrowgar this changed quickly. I'm the raid leader so this is how the group was set up. Ranged away. Melee inside hitbox. Everyone on spike duty (because we're not 25 man, we don't have the fun of "LET THE RANGED GET IT") Tree on raid. Paly on tanks. I'll mop up your mistakes.
Boy did I ever mop. We never got marrow below 50%. I however manged to pull of 70% of the healing, which means my healers are either terrible, or I'm the most cruel heal sniper in the world.
This is literally what I have to deal with. Me essentially single healing any encounter with a gimped healer at best. I had a lovely 60/40 on ony, probably the messiest attempt ever (all ranged but 1 died before phase 2 started. That one ranged got ony down on his own, then proceeded to fall over with my healer partner, It was then a one heal, one dps, two tank affair with me dying MOMENTS before the kill, woo!)
So I have to shift. I originally had glyphs, CH, LHW and Riptide. I did this because I had a great shammy partner, and we 2healed pretty much everything together. It's not so much now. I'm not the "sort of raid heals" guy I used to be, and I can't depend on anyone to keep me alive either, LEAST of all myself. I get to choose who goes where, what groups are around, so I shove tanks and those void zone abusers in my group and hopefully let healing stream take care of them as it can.
Anyways, back to the talents. Elemental weapons are so worth it!....?
That's DISGUSTING. I would rather put enhancing totems, guardian totems, I'd say I might even go with healing focus over them. everyone takes improves shields anyways, I don't even know why anyone wouldn't, but hey, my ex-co healer didn't and she glyphed water mastery too. I don't argue with results. I just hate that people are willing to quantify the wiggle room. They don't much change throughput, and don't effect mana regen, so I've never understood the love for 60ish sp. I like enhancing totems. 23 extra str/agi is nice. 20 sp is also nice. Having it applied RAID WIDE makes it amazing. Plus it lets me override horn of winter, which is always a plus.
