Totem Talk: Restoration's raiding talent specs
by Joe Perez 
Apr 12th 2011 at 8:00PM
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how.
Last week, we talked about our choices for restoration shaman in terms of pre-raid gems and enchants and a little bit more about stats. Making sure you know what options you have for your sockets and what enchantments to put on your gear is just as important as gathering the gear itself.
This week, we're going to be talking about choosing a starting a raiding talent spec. Your talent choices not only define what type of role your character will play, but they give you a set of bonuses to make you better at your chosen job. Picking that talent spec when you are first getting set to raid can be a bit tricky, but that is exactly what we are going to focus on today.
Last week, we talked about our choices for restoration shaman in terms of pre-raid gems and enchants and a little bit more about stats. Making sure you know what options you have for your sockets and what enchantments to put on your gear is just as important as gathering the gear itself.
This week, we're going to be talking about choosing a starting a raiding talent spec. Your talent choices not only define what type of role your character will play, but they give you a set of bonuses to make you better at your chosen job. Picking that talent spec when you are first getting set to raid can be a bit tricky, but that is exactly what we are going to focus on today.
While we are going to be talking about talent specs today, we're not going to go into too much detail about the individual talents themselves. In fact, that's something we did several weeks back, so feel free to check out the talent and tier breakdown if you want a refresher. Today we're going to talk about three specs that are good for starting restoration raiders and the strengths of each.
Lightning? No thanks, I'll just heal!
3/7/31
Main features Acuity, Ancestral Swiftness , Cleansing Waters , Blessing of Eternals
Does not include Telluric Currents, Ancestral Resolve
This spec is a basic starting spec for a raiding restoration shaman. It covers all the basics and really fills out some of the better support stats. Fully talented Acuity gives a full 3% crit in addition to whatever gear, gems, and enchants you are already wearing. Cleansing Waters gives you some free healing in those instances where you'll be removing curses or magical effects from your raid members, while Blessing of the Eternals helps to maximize the healing from Earthliving when your raid's health is low -- and honestly, when your first start raiding, it's likely that there will be many people low on health.
Ancestral Swiftness gives you a boost to movement speed, which is very important when raiding, because the faster you can get into position, the faster you can start healing. Also, if you're not in a position to purchase a movement speed boot enchant, you won't have to stress about it as much with this talent. As an added bonus, it makes Ghost Wolf instant-cast, and since it can now be used indoors, it can be quite handy when you need to get out of Dodge.
The spec ignores Telluric Currents and Ancestral Resolve for greater benefit elsewhere. TC can be tough to squeeze in when you're first learning the ropes of raiding, and while it does have the potential for some major mana returns, it might not be the best thing to focus on right away. AR at first glance seems like a great pickup, but not when you weigh the benefits of 10% damage reduction versus spending the two points elsewhere. Also consider that there may be times when you aren't casting at all and you lose the benefit. I think you're better off spending the points somewhere else.
All in all, this is a very solid starting spec.
I'm gonna light you up, sweet cheeks!
3/7/31
Main features Acuity, Ancestral Swiftness, Cleansing Waters 1/2, Blessing of the Eternals 1/2, Telluric Currents
Does not include Ancestral Resolve
The is another good beginner raiding spec for a restoration shaman who is pretty comfortable with throwing out a Lightning Bolt or two. Picking up TC only involves moving two talent points around. Pulling a point out of Cleansing Waters isn't too big of a hit; you give up a slight decrease in mana reduction and a little less on the heal, but it's for a good cause. Giving up a point in Blessing of the Eternals reduces your healing output on lower-health targets and will be less than optimal on fights like Chimaeron where everyone's health will be super low regularly -- but again, this is for a potentially good cause. What you are left with is full use of Ancestral Swiftness and all three points in Acuity for maximum bonus crit.
The big gain here is Telluric Currents, which if you make use of it can result in some serious mana gains and an incredible increase in your healing longevity. If you're comfortable doing it, there are many entry-level bosses that afford you time to squeeze some Lightning Bolts out.
Let's look at Magmaw for a quick moment here. The fight is one of the first two that you can engage in inside of Blackwing Descent, and the entire fight is basically divided into two phases: one in which there is a ton of potential damage and your mana will seem to fly away in buckets, and another phase when there is really no damage to worry about, basically a down phase. During the second phase when Magmaw's head is exposed, Point of Vulnerability will become active, and Magmaw will take an additional 100% damage. Looking at TC, you will gain 40% of any damage dealt by Lightning Bolt back as mana. During this phase, you can really fill up your mana bar in preparation for returning back to phase 1. There are actually quite a few opportunities to regen mana using TC if you can spot them, so keep your eyes open for them. The spec also ignores Ancestral Resolve.
But Lodur, what spec are you running?
3/5/33
Main features Acuity, Cleansing Waters, Telluric Currents, Blessing of the Eternals
Does not include Ancestral Resolve, Ancestral Swiftness
I figured it would be only fair to let you know what spec I'm currently running. This spec makes use of the key restoration talents and moves two points out of Ancestral Swiftness over into Telluric Currents. The reason for the shift is honestly because of picking up the Lavawalker enchant on my boots. With the additional run speed on my boots, I was able to move the two points into TC without sacrificing points in CW or BoE.
It ignores Ancestral Resolve -- because to be honest, there are plenty of times where I'm not actively chain-casting heals and instead am letting passive healing tick or throwing out a LB in order to regen some of my mana. I've been using this spec moving from normal mode raiding into heroic raid content, and it has served me quite well so far.
What works for you?
Now, these specs are based on personal preference, but the first two are great starting points for a beginning raiding shaman. These will likely be revisited when patch 4.1 finally goes live for slight modification to include Spirit Link Totem, but for now, they are good specs while you get your raiding feet wet.
I know I promised to dive into the relationship between mastery and haste this week a bit, but truth be told, that topic has a lot behind it and I couldn't justify squeezing it in, as it deserves some solid discussion. So instead, we're going to devote an entire week to that soon.
As always, if you have any questions feel free to email me, and I'll do my best to respond to you quickly.
Totem Talk: Restoration will show you the basics of endgame resto shaman play as well as how to find the expansion's best reputation gear for resto shaman and tips for easier leveling. Happy healing, and may your mana be plentiful!
Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jcompguy Apr 12th 2011 9:16PM
IMO if you have time to cast lightning bolts, either the fight is trivial or you're not doing enough healing. TC is only good on a few fights, those of which are fairly easy, even on heroic.
Sally Bowls Apr 13th 2011 12:22AM
I resisted TC until a couple of posts on Life in Group 5 persuaded me.
Unless you really overgear it I think you would at least respec to TC for things like magmaw.
Drocket Apr 13th 2011 1:14AM
I agreed with you about TC, until I used it a while. Its definitely better than you might initially think, especially as you move up in gear and its returns get bigger. Just about every fight has periods of heavy damage and periods of lighter damage. What TC allows you to do is cover the periods of heavy damage because you're able to blow your mana, then get it back during times of lower damage, which the other healers in your raid will be better able to handle because they didn't have to spend all their mana during the beating.
A couple of things that I'd say are important:
1) Use a macro for your lightning bolt. I use:
#showtooltip lightning bolt
/cast [@target,harm] [@targettarget,harm] lightning bolt
If you're targeting something bag, it'll cast it at them, and if you're targeting a raid member, it'll cast it at their target. That way you don't have to worry about switching targets as you heal (depending on what healing addons you may use, I suppose.) Bind that to an easy to reach key (i use E) and be ready to hit it during any free moment.
2) Using TC makes haste a better stat. The advice is normally for shaman to stop stacking haste after the first breakpoint, 915 I believe. More haste makes it easier to throw in an extra lightning bolt here and there.
Naris Apr 13th 2011 12:40PM
It is a pretty optional talent. It does have some uses where it makes things easier. Not everyone is clearing heroic raids on farm just yet. Some examples:
Magmaw: Written about in article.
Tron Council: Stand in Arcanotron's pools and get quicker mana regen.
Elevator boss: No defense. Priest healers are OP.
Maloriak: Plenty of time to use LB in phases.
Chimeron: LB a ton in phase 2.
Archamedes: If your raid is good at avoiding the avoidable damage you'll probably be casting nearly as many LB as you do heals in some periods.
Nef: If you're good enough to have time to LB, you probably outgear it.
Halfus: Once the drakes are down you'll have ample chance to use LB.
V&T: Not terribly useful due to high movement required.
Ascended: Also lots of time to use LB.
Cho'gall: If you're raid's fast on disrupts and maintaining adds you'll also have time.
Council of Wind: Depends on the bosses you're assigned but there's plenty of open space where you could use TC.
Al'Akir: Not so much.
Bvannas Apr 12th 2011 9:20PM
My spec is a 'Battle Medic' kind of spec. I go for Hit talents, Focused Insight and Telluric currents. Having all your support spells guarranteed to hit, and the freedom to throw in a helpful shock is why I'm sticking to this spec. Though some of the choices may seem a bit odd, so feel free to ask why :P
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hG00bZboZMGfMsdcRho (7/3/31)
gymboy91 Apr 12th 2011 10:51PM
Thank you for your columns...I cannot wait to get my shammy healer ready to raid =)
Which talent point do you think will be given up for spirit link totem when 4.1 hits?
jynus13 Apr 12th 2011 11:02PM
imp cleanse. As is, we don't need to cleanse on anything. Which is why I'm completely baffled to see CW as part of his recommended spec.. But yes, imp cleanse will be what we drop in favor of SLT. Unless you run TC, then it will have to come from Acuity.
Natsumi Apr 13th 2011 8:51AM
@jynus13
You cleanse in BH or you wipe.
jynus13 Apr 13th 2011 6:25PM
I don't base my raiding spec around how to kill a glorified trash mob. Imp cleanse currently is the most likely place to lose it from, since there is exactly 2 bosses where dispelling would be considered useful. chogal and sinestra. And both of these are better served by having priest do it. If need be, drop a point in acuity and voila, you're able to dispel as the token dispel healer. But even then, you still don't need imp cleanse. i'll go into that on your next point.
jynus13 Apr 12th 2011 10:55PM
AR > CW
Considering there is... like what, two fights where you cleanse where the heal would do anything, and 13 fights where you take damage, I'm completely baffled as to how CW can honestly be considered part of any serious raiders core spec... The hp saved from AR will just about always be more than the healing done from CW...
Natsumi Apr 13th 2011 8:55AM
I think you're missing the mana cost reduction part of the talent. If you're stuck doing cleanse duty you can burn through your mana pretty quick. The extra heal is just gravy.
jynus13 Apr 13th 2011 6:25PM
Nope, I'm not missing it at all. You're missing the damage reduction of AR. Lets try some math. I'll pick a dispel friendly fight, chogal, and lets even say you're the token dispeller.
I picked a random fight from WOL. 10 dispels, most of which came from the shaman, for sake of argument, lets say he does all 10. 10 dispels = ~30k healing from his parse. and 13120 mana saved.
In this parse, he also took 800k damage. 10% reduction on that from AR = 80000 damage not taken. Since he is not always casting, now this is where it gets tricky, since we don't know how much of that is from casting. But even assuming 75%, which is reasonable as you should be casting 75% of the time, you have 60000 damage not taken.
That means the tradeoff is 13120 mana gained vs 30000 damage taken. Using HW that 30k damage would = about 3 heals, which means his total mana saving for the fight is at 7177.
Now for chogal, for this, what is prob the most dispel friendly fight in the game using the most dispel friendly setup for imp cleanse, a shaman on perma dispel duty casting 75% of the time has a net benefit of 7k mana for the course of the fight.... 7k mana.... Take a bit more damage, or cast more efficiently, or dispel a bit less, and the net benefit can easily be 0...
Now compare this to the other, what, 11 fights in the game where imp cleanse is a non factor...... where the benefit of it is 0... so why exactly are you taking this talent again? It has use on 1 fight, where 2 talent point can net you 7k mana is you perma dispel, and lose you thousands of mana on every other fight from increased healing required...
zulkie Apr 12th 2011 11:07PM
I see a lot shamans at the end game are investing 2pts in TOTEMIC RANGE.
what do u think?
gymboy91 Apr 12th 2011 11:34PM
would that become even more beneficial when we get SLT (with 10 yd range)?? even though it is only 3 extra yards that may be useful?? idk...throwing it out there
Natsumi Apr 13th 2011 8:56AM
I think they are wasting talent points.
Brian Apr 13th 2011 12:00AM
I think Ancestral Swiftness is better than Lavawalker, in general. Here I will compare the two options:
-Taking Ancestral Swiftness gives you 15% run speed and instant cast Ghost Wolf for another 15% whenever you need it, which is incredibly useful on a majority of fights; remember that Ghost Wolf works indoors now. You can get out of fire and back to healing faster. You can reach a Sprinting target faster, you can heal kiters more effectively, heck you can even kite better yourself. Taking AS also means you are free to use the +50 haste enchant on your boots (which is widely considered to be superior to +50 mastery) rather than Lavawalker, which is a net gain of 7% movement speed and some throughput.
-Not taking Ancestral Swiftness means you get 2 talent points elsewhere - possibly more with the freedom to give up Elemental Weapons if you choose - so what you get out of these points really depends. However, it's pretty clear that all of your other options are just that - optional. You're probably looking at, say:
--Telluric Currents (situationally useful),
--Ancestral Resolve (good for progression, but not farm),
--Cleansing Waters (rarely useful in raids, but fairly useful for those still in heroics),
--Focused Insight (needs Elemental Precision to be useful, but currently bugged with Healing Rain, fixed in 4.1, see EJ), or
--Elemental Precision (situationally useful, although much less so in 4.1 when Wind Shear won't miss, and requires giving up Elemental Weapons).
(It's worth noting that you need to have 2 points spent among the first 4 talents in this list anyway in order to reach Riptide. High-tier content demands Ancestral Resolve.)
So would you rather have Lavawalker and two more talent points in one of those talents, or 7% move speed, Instant Ghost Wolf, +50 haste and -30 mastery? Looking at that list of optional talent choices, and looking at the ones I didn't mention, give me Instant Ghost Wolf any day - I think there is clearly way more utility for all levels of PvE content in this talent than any of the others. This talent has the capacity to save your life! Only Ancestral Resolve can also save your life, and as noted, high-tier Shaman already have it.
The other talents just don't give you enough of anything worthwhile to think about taking them over the extra mobility. Certainly take some of these talents *AFTER* taking Ancestral Swiftness, but not instead! And if the fight doesn't demand as much movement, or if you can't afford what you need elsewhere for some reason (maybe you have to pick up Cleansing Waters or Telluric Currents for one fight where it's useful), then you might definitely consider dropping AS (although I'd drop Acuity).
Brian Apr 13th 2011 1:55AM
(split post due to length)
I should note that I will spec the following in 4.1:
http://ptr.wowhead.com/talent#hhZbhMZfGbMsbcosd:dMb0ca
..making appropriate adjustments per boss. (Personally, I favor TC, so I would take points from Acuity for it.)
I consider this the base of mandatory talents:
http://ptr.wowhead.com/talent#hZbhMZfGbMsbcosd:dMb0ca
Anyway, I mean, if you're going to write a column on the best Resto spec, it ought to include the following:
1) the best general spec, i.e. the one spec that would give you the best all-around benefits for all fights;
2) the appropriate annotations for usually-inferior talents that only become worth taking a minority of the time, in the context of certain specific boss fights (in addition to the talents worth dropping in favor of these); and
3) the appropriate annotations for usually-superior talents that are okay to skip for certain fights, or perhaps for farm content.
As for the first point, the best general spec is definitely debatable, but Cleansing Waters definitely doesn't belong in it for obvious reasons: it is useless on most fights. I posit my spec as a better general spec than the ones in the article.
As for points 2 and 3, Telluric Currents has the biggest 'personal preference' factor and has been debated to death - the rest can largely be categorized as either "useful on most fights" or "useless on most fights":
-Focused Insight may become more valuable in 4.1, but does not currently offer as much value in PvE as Acuity, Ancestral Swiftness, or Ancestral Resolve, mostly because of its buggy interaction with Healing Rain, so file it under useless.
-Elemental Precision is an option that is viable for any fight where healers are required to help DPS, and for fights where for some reason you must help interrupt (although this usually falls to other classes and will be a moot point in 4.1). Elemental Precision also helps you Purge better. But if you don't need to do those things, don't spec for them! (Especially since you can't get this and Ancestral Swiftness!)
-Ancestral Resolve is firmly in the "useful on most fights" category, but you may not need it for content that you overgear. (Whether you bother to respec for farm content is up to you.)
-Nature's Blessing is optional for Shaman who are assigned to raid healing, and Soothing Rains is optional for Shaman who are assigned to tank healing, but even in those cases you'd still sometimes take the optional talent because a) your assigned targets may not need healing, b) the healers with other assignments may die and require you to shoulder their burden, and c) you may not find better value in other talents.
-I didn't mention Totemic Reach originally, but I'll touch on it since it was mentioned in another comment - it might be useful on fights that force your raids to spread out frequently, but it is generally more useful to just place your totems better in the first place. After all, you're a very mobile healer now as a Shaman, so you can run the extra few yards to make it happen, while casting even if you need to. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where totem range has been a problem to the point where I'd sacrifice any talents I already have to boost it. I don't recommend this talent at all for Resto.
-Cleansing Waters is a downright waste of talent points on all but a few fights, and therefore so is Improved Cleanse Spirit for the most part. In many raid compositions, you may not even need these talents for fights that *do* make use of them. CW exists mostly to boost our PvP performance.
So that's a lot of optional talents that we don't always want, although it should be easy to find the lesser of these evils in any given situation.
If you want to pick up an optional talent but can't afford it, you may consider taking points from Acuity, especially if Healing Rain and Earthliving are the most of your healing, since they can't crit.
Since there are so many viable combinations for talents for various fights, strats, and raid compositions, writing about 3 specs doesn't quite cover all of the pertinent information. This approach to the analysis of talents is a) entirely within the context of raiding, b) all-encompassing within that context, and c) accurate.
Trisul Apr 13th 2011 2:44AM
No love for the 7/2/32 spec?
Saeadame Apr 13th 2011 4:46AM
Random resto shaman questions I've been having since my shaman hit 85:
So that's raiding specs. Heroics-wise, are Improved Cleanse Spirit/Cleansing Waters pretty valuable? Just ICS? I think for fights like the last boss in Vortex Pinnacle, ICS at least would be mandatory. I'm not in the raiding scene yet on my shaman, so obviously I want to be specced optimally for heroics.
Other than that, the unleash weapon for earthliving weapon is... cute. It's cheap (I think?) and instant, but it also doesn't heal for much. Useful? I mean, it does work nicely to top someone off who is missing a minuscule amount of health, but is it worth it to cast that instead of putting the time toward another cast time spell, particularly on targets that are losing more health (ie tanks)?
priestessaur Apr 13th 2011 10:04AM
Unleash elements is very useful.
First off, if you are moving and need to heal on the run (and RT is on CD), throw an unleash elements out there. Yes, its a small heal, but its better than nothing.
Where it becomes most useful however, is the 20% buff it gives to your next direct heal.
I will use it to charge up a chain heal, esp when I don't want to consume a Riptide hot.
If you need to land a big heal, you can UE and then use a GHW. The extra 20% on GHW gives you a nice heal per mana boost.
It's a good spell to get in the habit of using, if you just can't find the time to work it in otherwise, macro UE to Riptide.