Restoration Shaman 7.3

[Guest Neha]

Hmm, alright. So there really is no stat weights to guide you then?

[Orthios 271]

17 minutes ago, Guest Neha said:

Hmm, alright. So there really is no stat weights to guide you then?

No, only general priorities.

[Furty 51]

2 hours ago, Orthios said:

No, only general priorities.

 

3 hours ago, Guest Neha said:

Hmm, alright. So there really is no stat weights to guide you then?

In addition to everything Orthios said, values for healers shift from fight to fight and depending on you and your raid's level of gear. For example, as I noted in the guide and the comments, Mastery excels in early progression but isn't as strong when you are doing progression months behind (as people are generally not as low on health as often). There are plenty of similar examples but ultimately you should do your best to follow the general priority and prioritize higher item level pieces wherever possible.

[Guest Kroho]

On 12/9/2016 at 1:33 PM, Pandacho said:

There were a lot of logs from Beta raid tests showing a miserable amount of mana return from Crit, so while there are no fresh live raid logs that show different, I would stay with my opinion regarding Haste > Crit.

I find a bit doubtful a reference to Crit as to serious/main source of mana return, rather than a standard reference 'makes your healing spells crit'.

I agree with you about the amount of mana return from crit, but you have to consider that the artifact traits bonus makes crit more interesting.
Remember: a lot of your artifact traits benefit or work well with crit.

Tidal Chains (3/3), Queen Ascendant (3/3) and a 25% crit are easy to get in early game.
With those buff you can save a low hp tank with a Riptide -> Healing Surge -> Healing Wave combo.
Riptide give you Tidal Waves, Tidal Waves is consumed by Healing Surge for crit, Healing Surge crit reduce the cast time of Healing Wave. This is a lot of single target heals in a few sec and i assume that only Healing Surge is a crit.

Moreover with 25% crit (from equipped gear) 1/4 of your direct heals will proc Queen Ascendant reducing the cast time of ALL your healing spell! 
DOT can crit too for more hps.

In mythic dungeon i don't feel the mana problem, but i frequently use food in undergeared pug group. When i play with my guild we can coordinate better and there'is not mana wasting.

When raids and mythic+ come out we will see.

[Guest Neha]

Thanks for your feedback guys.

[Valks 2,375]

15 hours ago, Guest Neha said:

Thanks for your feedback guys.

That's what we're here for!

On 15.9.2016 at 11:09 AM, Guest Kroho said:

When raids and mythic+ come out we will see.

I think it's fair to say that things might change depending on the fight, the group etc. Make sure to let us know what you find from your raiding!

[Totempowa 0]

I get what you all are saying as far as certain fights you may want more haste than mastery, or whatever the case. But I am curious as to what each individual stat weight currently gives. Say, at what % haste do we get that first or second extra tick of riptide now, and things like that.  I understand things are not too serious yet, but with raiding pushing out this next week I would like to stay as far ahead of the curve as possible this expansion. A 5 item level difference can give a 56 point difference on INT on a pair of pants (currently looking at a comparison in my bags) I could loose 416 mastery (socketed), to gain 339 haste, but with Mastery > Haste does mastery out weigh haste enough to make that switch, or do they even compare enough to the INT increase to even concern secondary stats?  Say those were reversed and I was gaining that much mastery and loosing that much INT, does Mastery out perform Int at any level? 

 

[Valks 2,375]

6 hours ago, Totempowa said:

A 5 item level difference can give a 56 point difference on INT on a pair of pants (currently looking at a comparison in my bags) I could loose 416 mastery (socketed), to gain 339 haste, but with Mastery > Haste does mastery out weigh haste enough to make that switch, or do they even compare enough to the INT increase to even concern secondary stats?  Say those were reversed and I was gaining that much mastery and loosing that much INT, does Mastery out perform Int at any level? 

I think the only way you could solve that would be literally just testing it in-game yourself or through intense theorycrafting. You can't simply sim it and get a result as a DPS would, which means reliable weights are horrible to find.

@Pandacho any insight or suggestions?

[Pandacho 286]

5 hours ago, Blainie said:

I think the only way you could solve that would be literally just testing it in-game yourself or through intense theorycrafting. You can't simply sim it and get a result as a DPS would, which means reliable weights are horrible to find.

@Pandacho any insight or suggestions?

Mastery is not outperforming Intellect in terms of raw stat weights, the weight of Int is always higher.

In this specific case, where the question is whether to loose 416 Mastery for 56 Int - the answer would be 'no'. But then the next question would be what's the ratio of Mast:Haste:Crit on your gear because there may be a situation where you should normalize the stats so gaining a bit of Int and a lot of Haste would be better for the output than stacking additional Mastery.

Haste outperform Mastery on farm fights, where people rarely drop below 70% HP because, let's face it, Mastery rocks on targets below 60%HP.

If you want some theorycrafting and specific stat weights, you can check 2 docs:

Koor's here and Gardiff's here.

They have a bit different approach from each other but are agree with the output (Int>Mastery>Haste>Crit). I follow their theorycrafting from early Beta and agree with both of them. Unfortunately all the extensive discussion was deleted with the Beta forums but you can find their threads with full explanation of used formulas on MMOC.

I personally don't use 'hard' stat weights, at least not now when we only started gearing and take any piece that will boost our ilvl. I know the stats prio and the needed ratio between secondaries and it's enough for me. I start to check the hard numbers when we are in the end of a tier and the question is whether to swap 20 Int and 36 Mastery for 15 Int and 42 Haste :)

[Karkarr 1]

2 hours ago, Pandacho said:

Mastery is not outperforming Intellect in terms of raw stat weights, the weight of Int is always higher.

In this specific case, where the question is whether to loose 416 Mastery for 56 Int - the answer would be 'no'. But then the next question would be what's the ratio of Mast:Haste:Crit on your gear because there may be a situation where you should normalize the stats so gaining a bit of Int and a lot of Haste would be better for the output than stacking additional Mastery.

Haste outperform Mastery on farm fights, where people rarely drop below 70% HP because, let's face it, Mastery rocks on targets below 60%HP.

If you want some theorycrafting and specific stat weights, you can check 2 docs:

Koor's here and Gardiff's here.

They have a bit different approach from each other but are agree with the output (Int>Mastery>Haste>Crit). I follow their theorycrafting from early Beta and agree with both of them. Unfortunately all the extensive discussion was deleted with the Beta forums but you can find their threads with full explanation of used formulas on MMOC.

I personally don't use 'hard' stat weights, at least not now when we only started gearing and take any piece that will boost our ilvl. I know the stats prio and the needed ratio between secondaries and it's enough for me. I start to check the hard numbers when we are in the end of a tier and the question is whether to swap 20 Int and 36 Mastery for 15 Int and 42 Haste :)

Hi Pandacho,

Can you please tell us what is the ratio between secondary stats?

Thanks,

Karkarr

[Valks 2,375]

20 hours ago, Karkarr said:

Hi Pandacho,

Can you please tell us what is the ratio between secondary stats?

Thanks,

Karkarr

I would recommend checking those 2 documents out, you'll find the information you need in her post.

[Guest Scrim]

For neck enchant you have:

Enchant Neck - Mark of the Claw

However, this does not proc from healing spells. It appears the "Mark of the trained soldier" is better for the flat 300 mastery. 

[Valks 2,375]

On 9/23/2016 at 6:54 PM, Guest Scrim said:

For neck enchant you have:

Enchant Neck - Mark of the Claw

However, this does not proc from healing spells. It appears the "Mark of the trained soldier" is better for the flat 300 mastery. 

Thanks! I've passed this on and we'll get it looked into!

[Valks 2,375]

Generic comment being mass posted over the comments threads guys.

We are aware of the changes and our writers are working hard to update the guides to suit what has changed. Currently, there is a lot of work still to be done and it's unlikely that every guide will be up-to-date immediately. Expect a flood of updates over the coming days that will answer all of your questions about what is now best after X change, in time for the reset next week.

Thanks for your understanding and patience.

[opachopp 0]

Is using chain heal often good if we put Crit>Haste as it says in this guide? because atm my chain heal's cast time is around 2.3 which feels way too slow.

[Pandacho 286]

2 hours ago, opachopp said:

Is using chain heal often good if we put Crit>Haste as it says in this guide? because atm my chain heal's cast time is around 2.3 which feels way too slow.

What do you mean by 'good'? I don't use Crit>Haste prio but my chain heals in raid heal 800-1M HP in one cast. Is it good?

[Nali 0]

I disagree with your guide...Maybe it's outdated???  Doesn't matter,  I run a resto shaman quite a bit, as well as other healing classes.  Resto shaman has been my main for many expansions now, and is more like my 1/2 main this expansion.  I'd like to point out just a few things.

4. Tier 2

Gust of wind is extremely useful.  It might not be a raid-wide or party-wide tool but it's available so frequently that it allows you to escape on a regular basis - you can get into areas you shouldn't be getting into (like rot infested areas) to get off an emergency heal or stay somewhere a second longer to throw out heals and then use this talent to get out fast.  So while it's not a party tool, it's an awesome self-survival tool that can give you more time to save the party. IMO, it's a better pick than the other talents.  All are somewhat situational but gust of wind is always useful.

6. Tier 4

Crashing waves is also very useful.  It becomes even more useful once points are spent on increasing the effects of riptide in your artifact weapon, as well as socketed relics for riptide + talented for torrent and the 40% increase to riptide that gives.  To take full advantage of this, the rotation would be riptide - heal - heal - riptide - heal - heal, etc. (where heal = either healing surge or healing wave, keeping in mind tidal waves basically turns healing wave into healing surge for lower mana cost and casting healing surge instead should crit pretty nicely, netting a better heal for a slightly higher mana cost). 

 

7. Tier 5

Earthen Shield Totem - the lifesaving potential of this is immeasurable.  It doesn't matter what the numbers say or what theorycrafting is being done or has been done, I have seen the potential myself.  This can save the group (not necessarily stacked but at least close together) more often than spirit link totem and you can use this solely as a tank cd, if needed, to give them help through spikey damage - it doesn't matter whether you use it for one target or 10, it still works.  To say that ancestral vigor is better than this is opinion and not fact.  I love this talent.  I raid with this talent.  This talent is awesome.

 

8. Tier 6

Echo of elements is a pretty solid talent to take.  Yes it's good for high movement fights - which pretty much equals every fight in legion dungeons and raids.  Nuff' said. This also makes the riptide - heal - heal - riptide - heal - heal rotation extremely smooth and still allows for extra riptides to be cast as spot-heals. Additionally, this allows you to almost always have healing stream totem up - take into consideration the points in the artifact weapon for damage reduction when healing stream totem dropped.

 

The End.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Nali

[Valks 2,375]

10 hours ago, Nali said:

I disagree with your guide...Maybe it's outdated???  Doesn't matter,  I run a resto shaman quite a bit, as well as other healing classes.  Resto shaman has been my main for many expansions now, and is more like my 1/2 main this expansion.  I'd like to point out just a few things.

The guide hasn't been updated to reflect the changes that occurred recently. I'll pass on your feedback to Furty anyway.

[Pandacho 286]

On 10/1/2016 at 1:14 PM, Nali said:

I disagree with your guide...Maybe it's outdated???  Doesn't matter,  I run a resto shaman quite a bit, as well as other healing classes.  Resto shaman has been my main for many expansions now, and is more like my 1/2 main this expansion.  I'd like to point out just a few things.

4. Tier 2

Gust of wind is extremely useful.  It might not be a raid-wide or party-wide tool but it's available so frequently that it allows you to escape on a regular basis - you can get into areas you shouldn't be getting into (like rot infested areas) to get off an emergency heal or stay somewhere a second longer to throw out heals and then use this talent to get out fast.  So while it's not a party tool, it's an awesome self-survival tool that can give you more time to save the party. IMO, it's a better pick than the other talents.  All are somewhat situational but gust of wind is always useful.

6. Tier 4

Crashing waves is also very useful.  It becomes even more useful once points are spent on increasing the effects of riptide in your artifact weapon, as well as socketed relics for riptide + talented for torrent and the 40% increase to riptide that gives.  To take full advantage of this, the rotation would be riptide - heal - heal - riptide - heal - heal, etc. (where heal = either healing surge or healing wave, keeping in mind tidal waves basically turns healing wave into healing surge for lower mana cost and casting healing surge instead should crit pretty nicely, netting a better heal for a slightly higher mana cost). 

7. Tier 5

Earthen Shield Totem - the lifesaving potential of this is immeasurable.  It doesn't matter what the numbers say or what theorycrafting is being done or has been done, I have seen the potential myself.  This can save the group (not necessarily stacked but at least close together) more often than spirit link totem and you can use this solely as a tank cd, if needed, to give them help through spikey damage - it doesn't matter whether you use it for one target or 10, it still works.  To say that ancestral vigor is better than this is opinion and not fact.  I love this talent.  I raid with this talent.  This talent is awesome.

8. Tier 6

Echo of elements is a pretty solid talent to take.  Yes it's good for high movement fights - which pretty much equals every fight in legion dungeons and raids.  Nuff' said. This also makes the riptide - heal - heal - riptide - heal - heal rotation extremely smooth and still allows for extra riptides to be cast as spot-heals. Additionally, this allows you to almost always have healing stream totem up - take into consideration the points in the artifact weapon for damage reduction when healing stream totem dropped.

Sorry but I have to disagree with your points. As you might know, the IV guides are mostly focused on the raid environment so:

Tier 2:

Constant speed boost in a Wolf Form+ addition boost during SWG+ interaction with the Ghost in the Mist artifact trait makes Graceful Spirit much more appealing in raids that a 15 sec. CD jump. In addition it's a passive so you always move faster and with the additional protection from the artifact trait. Gust of Wind may be nice when doing solo content, maybe in 5-man, but not in raid encounters where pretty often you have to move out of crap continuously. Gust restricts your 'speed boost' to one use in 15 sec.

Tier 4:

A buff of a single target HoT that has a CD is not better in raid environment than two other talents that buff AoE healing.

Healers don't have a rotation, we are not dps classes, so I disagree with your suggestion of Riptide-heal-heal-Riptide-heal-heal. It's just not how we heal in raids. Apart of Riptide on CD and single target heals, we use Healing Rain, we use Chain Heal, Artifact ability, cooldowns with AoE spam and totems. Resto shamans in raids are famous for their AoE healing so, sorry, but the other two talents would be better.

Regarding 5-man dungeons, I personally stick to Ancestral Guidance in M+ (up to +7 so far). I tried Crashing Waves but it wasn't appealing to my play style - I prefer to have 2 group CDs - AG and Ascendance - and alter their usage on packs. Much easier to heal and I have enough time to dps too.

Tier 5:

Theoretically the EST talent is very good and I started to raid with it, but found very-very fast that for some reason^^ people are not staying in its area - they constantly move on most of the fights and frankly, I should not complicate other raiders life forcing them to pay attention to my totems. So I switched to Ancestral Vigor and it feels and looks much better - it has a 100% uptime in raids and you may apply it whenever you need. Here's a log example for AV usage.

Tier 6:

We are not solo healing raids and there are always other healing classes with HoTs or CDs. If there's a serious chunk of a fight where you have to move while suffering from constant damage, drop a HTT, use SWG with AG, ask a druid for a Tranq and so on. There are specific tools to deal with this kind of damage and sorry, it doesn't involve double Riptide.

Regarding a double HST, I'm sorry once more but you are technically wrong - you don't get a 100% uptime of it from 50% but 1 additional HST in a fight. You can test this by yourself but do at least 10 casts in a row, not 2-3.

I do use Echo in 5-man - it gives me a flexibility to dps after throwing some HoTs and dropping a totem, but in raids CBT is a pure win with its stored power and a smart distribution. CBT makes the average 10% (between 8% and 14%) of my Total Healing Done in raids and it's a 'right' healing redistributed to people that need it.

 

About this Riptide-Heal-Heal rotation I already wrote - you cut away about 60% of a shaman healing toolkit in this way. It's not very flexible playstyle in raids, neither in a high level (M+) 5-man where our goal is to be useful in every possible way rather than spam a rotation. And to be useful, you have to be flexible so you'd be able to interrupt, to stun and to dps helping to make a run faster.

I'm open to a discussion if you want to continue but let's do it with your and my logs please :)

[Guest Kavranzade]

On 9/12/2016 at 1:33 PM, Pandacho said:

There were a lot of logs from Beta raid tests showing a miserable amount of mana return from Crit, so while there are no fresh live raid logs that show different, I would stay with my opinion regarding Haste > Crit.

I find a bit doubtful a reference to Crit as to serious/main source of mana return, rather than a standard reference 'makes your healing spells crit'.

Crit is not just a mana return mechanic via resurgence, it has great synergy with our artifact trait queen's decree (the trait that makes crits grant haste, plus think of it this way, crit makes more healing per mana which is a lot more important in progress raiding, crit makes your artifact spell stronger while haste simply just reduces its cast time, haste is a good stat aswell but the artifact trait I mentioned above makes me feel like I have so much already.

[Pandacho 286]

3 hours ago, Guest Kavranzade said:

Crit is not just a mana return mechanic via resurgence, it has great synergy with our artifact trait queen's decree (the trait that makes crits grant haste, plus think of it this way, crit makes more healing per mana which is a lot more important in progress raiding, crit makes your artifact spell stronger while haste simply just reduces its cast time, haste is a good stat aswell but the artifact trait I mentioned above makes me feel like I have so much already.

Are you considering the difference between value of Crit as a pure stat and its value in the gearing process?

It's not the same: while Crit is good as a stat itself (I value Crit=1, Haste=1.2, you can value them both the same), actually having about 8% of it on a 'naked' char (5% passive and about 3% from Artifact) seriously devalue it in the gearing process - you already have 8% of Crit even before starting to put armor on. So now you have to gather at least the same amount of Haste to get on pair and don't forget some Versatility too - its value is not 0.

Don't forget that Crit has worse than Haste ratio of stat amount vs stat %.

Crit is not more important in Progress raiding, Mastery is far more important, and then come Haste. You made a technical mistake here - Haste does not simply reduce cast times but adds additional ticks to our HoTs and healing totems so they heal for more in the same time. In addition, reduced cast times means more spells being cast->more healing done.

What we do need in progress raiding as a raid healers is a consistency in performance. Crit doesn't give it - it's a random, while you can always rely on Mastery and Haste in doing exactly the same work in every pull, being even better the lower your raid drops.

[Nali 0]

On 10/1/2016 at 11:57 PM, Pandacho said:

Sorry but I have to disagree with your points. As you might know, the IV guides are mostly focused on the raid environment so:

Tier 2:

Constant speed boost in a Wolf Form+ addition boost during SWG+ interaction with the Ghost in the Mist artifact trait makes Graceful Spirit much more appealing in raids that a 15 sec. CD jump. In addition it's a passive so you always move faster and with the additional protection from the artifact trait. Gust of Wind may be nice when doing solo content, maybe in 5-man, but not in raid encounters where pretty often you have to move out of crap continuously. Gust restricts your 'speed boost' to one use in 15 sec.

Tier 4:

A buff of a single target HoT that has a CD is not better in raid environment than two other talents that buff AoE healing.

Healers don't have a rotation, we are not dps classes, so I disagree with your suggestion of Riptide-heal-heal-Riptide-heal-heal. It's just not how we heal in raids. Apart of Riptide on CD and single target heals, we use Healing Rain, we use Chain Heal, Artifact ability, cooldowns with AoE spam and totems. Resto shamans in raids are famous for their AoE healing so, sorry, but the other two talents would be better.

Regarding 5-man dungeons, I personally stick to Ancestral Guidance in M+ (up to +7 so far). I tried Crashing Waves but it wasn't appealing to my play style - I prefer to have 2 group CDs - AG and Ascendance - and alter their usage on packs. Much easier to heal and I have enough time to dps too.

Tier 5:

Theoretically the EST talent is very good and I started to raid with it, but found very-very fast that for some reason^^ people are not staying in its area - they constantly move on most of the fights and frankly, I should not complicate other raiders life forcing them to pay attention to my totems. So I switched to Ancestral Vigor and it feels and looks much better - it has a 100% uptime in raids and you may apply it whenever you need. Here's a log example for AV usage.

Tier 6:

We are not solo healing raids and there are always other healing classes with HoTs or CDs. If there's a serious chunk of a fight where you have to move while suffering from constant damage, drop a HTT, use SWG with AG, ask a druid for a Tranq and so on. There are specific tools to deal with this kind of damage and sorry, it doesn't involve double Riptide.

Regarding a double HST, I'm sorry once more but you are technically wrong - you don't get a 100% uptime of it from 50% but 1 additional HST in a fight. You can test this by yourself but do at least 10 casts in a row, not 2-3.

I do use Echo in 5-man - it gives me a flexibility to dps after throwing some HoTs and dropping a totem, but in raids CBT is a pure win with its stored power and a smart distribution. CBT makes the average 10% (between 8% and 14%) of my Total Healing Done in raids and it's a 'right' healing redistributed to people that need it.

 

About this Riptide-Heal-Heal rotation I already wrote - you cut away about 60% of a shaman healing toolkit in this way. It's not very flexible playstyle in raids, neither in a high level (M+) 5-man where our goal is to be useful in every possible way rather than spam a rotation. And to be useful, you have to be flexible so you'd be able to interrupt, to stun and to dps helping to make a run faster.

I'm open to a discussion if you want to continue but let's do it with your and my logs please :)

This doesn't make me less accurate...I just have an opinion that differs from yours.  The point I'm making, pretty solidly, is that the information in the guide isn't spot-on.

Personally, I try other stuff whenever I can - see how it feels.  

A lot of the talents this expac are really about personal playstyle.  You can get the job done using A and B and maybe even C depending on what you like.  So debating is pretty mute....info is better.

What I do want to do is take those talents listed as "useless" and show where they may be useful.  People shouldn't be afraid to test it out - it's far better than following blind advice.  

Nice points though.  A little less snarkiness would make it even better. You don't need to challenge me to a game of "mine is bigger"...that's a waste of time for both of us.  I do my homework honey, and I'm one of the top healers in my guild no matter what I'm healing on.  I'm not theory-crafting here...I'm telling people about things I've tested.  I never said those talents were the best choices or the only choices, what I did say was they were good and not useless and here's how to use them.  

Can't really tell me what a resto sham is or isn't....I am one...and it's not something I recently picked up.  :D  Cute little insinuations though.  I give you points for trying.

[Arcarania 0]

On 10/5/2016 at 10:54 PM, Nali said:

This doesn't make me less accurate... <snipped for brevity>

Can't really tell me what a resto sham is or isn't....I am one...and it's not something I recently picked up.  :D  Cute little insinuations though.  I give you points for trying.

I would also be interested in seeing your logs, because math trumps opinion.

[Valks 2,375]

On 10/6/2016 at 4:54 AM, Nali said:

This doesn't make me less accurate...I just have an opinion that differs from yours. 

Yes, it does. Opinion means nothing in this discussion. None of our guides are based on opinion. They are based on what performs best mathematically.

When our Havoc DH guide was released, there was a talent that basically turned an ability into a passive. It completely dulled the rotation to the point where you were basically auto-attacking and occasionally hitting buttons. We are not here to tell you how to enjoy your class, you can find that out yourself. People come here because they want to know exactly what performs the best and why. 

If you want to pick other talents, you can, and I sincerely hope you enjoy playing with them. This does not make them perform better, however.

Until you can post logs to backup what you are saying, your opinion unfortunately doesn't mean much in a discussion of performance.

On 10/6/2016 at 4:54 AM, Nali said:

I do my homework honey

I'd prefer if you weren't so patronising towards our moderators, thanks. Pandacho has taken the time out of her day to give you a full response detailing exactly why you are wrong mathematically, as well as including a link to one of her logs. 

[Nali 0]

On 10/7/2016 at 6:57 AM, Blainie said:

Yes, it does. Opinion means nothing in this discussion. None of our guides are based on opinion. They are based on what performs best mathematically.

When our Havoc DH guide was released, there was a talent that basically turned an ability into a passive. It completely dulled the rotation to the point where you were basically auto-attacking and occasionally hitting buttons. We are not here to tell you how to enjoy your class, you can find that out yourself. People come here because they want to know exactly what performs the best and why. 

If you want to pick other talents, you can, and I sincerely hope you enjoy playing with them. This does not make them perform better, however.

Until you can post logs to backup what you are saying, your opinion unfortunately doesn't mean much in a discussion of performance.

I'd prefer if you weren't so patronising towards our moderators, thanks. Pandacho has taken the time out of her day to give you a full response detailing exactly why you are wrong mathematically, as well as including a link to one of her logs. 

 

I don't care about your moderators, who don't seem to care about your patrons.  She took the time out of her day to be patronizing towards me and I don't have to deal with it any more than any other person.  You aren't special just because you run or moderate a website that I no longer recommend to people.  Fan boys can stand up for you if they want to but the fact is, the growing consensus is that your guides are garbage.  At some point, if you don't do something about that, your website will be completely obsolete instead of just mostly obsolete and then what are you going to do and what will you have to brag about?

I get that you feel you're something exceptional and that comes with an elitist attitude but a different approach may have served you better.

This insistence on log comparisons is absolutely ridiculous.  I'm not 12.  I'm not going to play that bs game with you guys. I'm not going through the trouble of logging crap and posting it just to prove my D is bigger than yours.  I don't care about your numbers.  I don't care about your "math".  I don't care what you do with your time.

Fact is, I switched up my talents.  I ran it your way.  I ran it every way each of your people suggested...just to test it.

I ran it in heroics, mythics, m+ and EN normal.  I also ran it on 2 out 7 bosses EN heroic.

I pumped out far more hps running it my way, than I did running it your way.  Additionally, I had more flexibility my way, minus the earthen shield totem which I did find to be easier to omit.  I'm still on the fence as far as graceful spirit is concerned.

Some of what you say is just ridiculous crap intended to make others look idiotic so you can feel smart.  When blizz starts paying you to play wow, officially sponsoring you personally, then you can have that attitude.  Until then, you're just another player.

Healers do have a rotation....they always have.  They have a "oh crap" rotation and a "this is cake" rotation, etc... that's flexible and generally decided on the fly but it's still a rotation.  Comparing them to dps by saying they are not dps and therefore do not have a rotation is an idiotic statement.  In that regard, dps do not have a rotation either.  Tanks do not have a rotation either.  If you can recommend spells to use for periods of high damage and periods of low damage - it's a rotation...it might not be strictly adhered to, but it is a general rotation..an idea of how something might look.

To take my suggested riptide heal rotation to mean nothing in between and nothing after with no deviation - a strict rotation - is asinine.  It's absolutely no different from your suggestions for "rotation".  If you need a strict rotation on any class, you're probably not any good at it.  Period.

My suggestions are relatively mana-efficient.  Yep shamans use chain heal and healing rain.  But that isn't all they're good for or all they should be doing.  A shaman, like any healer, can be a strong tank healer, and a strong AOE healer.  Maybe your fantasy of the class is all about chain heal, but why limit a healer that can do it all so well?

Math is like.. 2+2=4.  And since you're not dealing with absolute numbers, almost ever, your little "math beats opinion" crap...is..first of all..opinion...of...opinion..based on...opinion.  You cannot quantify x+y=z, given that x y and z are ever changing variables based on so many other ever changing numbers. Your moderator lackey didn't give any "mathematical" explanations for why anything was better than anything else.  And any mathematical reason for anything anyway would have been invalid because... see above reference to xyz. We don't play in a vacuum where theories of perfection actually work out.  Theoretically, SWG sounds like perfection.  Practically, something else may be better.  Theoretically, improving chain heal is great.  Practically, you might need something else because even without the improvement it's really good.  You are dealing in shades of gray and just calling it black and white.  You have fun with that, I'll continue topping heal meters.

BTW, 3 HST up and then 3 seconds to wait on a 4th, doesn't equal 50% uptime.  Maybe that math is in error?  If you popped your 30 second cd every cd for a 10 minute fight you would get a total of 20 hst's.  Dropping HST every 15 seconds instead of 30, doubles that to 40. 15 second cd for a 15 sec totem, not counting gcd and other factors, would in fact equal 100% uptime but because we don't play in this perfect vacuum and we have things like gcd's to factor in, you won't get that.  But it's still not 50% uptime. It might only be 60% rather than 100%...maybe... but having it cool almost every time I want it, is a far cry from having it on cd all the time.

Now I'm done with your forums and your posse of sheep rushing to defend your outdated guide as if you were personally insulted.  You've already proven to me, and anyone else with a brain, that you only care about your own ideas, excuse me...your imaginary math, and have no tolerance for anything else.