Restoration Shaman: Talent Tree

Here is my current build.

I'm going to explain the things that need explaining, rather than the 'No, really?' ones. Or the ones I'm thinking of changing, or some such.

Enhancement:
5/5 Ancestral Knowledge: Because 10% extra intellect is sexy.

3/3 Improved Shields: Because Mana Shield and Earth Shield boosted by 15% is also sexy.

3/5 Thundering Strikes: Actually, I only need 2/5 so I'm going to put this down to lag and me clicking one time too many. However, increased crit strike chance on spells by 3 (or 2)% is pretty nice.

And I need it for:

3/3 Elemental Weapons: Increasing the bonus healing on my Earthliving Weapon by 30%? Now, some may say... big deal, so what? And I've never been very good at figuring out numbers. But it would seem to me that 30% bonus healing ... is good?

Restoration:
3/3 Ancestral Healing: Increases armor by 25%... it's nifty, definately nifty. But I'm thinking of putting these points elsewhere. Especially as thus far, in raid situations, I tend to be on raid healing, and most of the time, those people don't need increased armor.

0 Healing Grace: In raids, you usually aren't worried about threat, not since they boosted the heck out of the threat generation of tanks. And... we really don't have many cases where we're worried about people dispelling our spells. I can see where in PvP that would be quite useful to not have your Earth Shield dispelled from you.

0 Healing Way: This would seem like a big one, and it IS a very nice boost!... if you're using Healing Wave very often. Maybe it's just me, maybe it isn't... but for the vast majority of my healing, I'm not using Healing Wave. I tend to use a lot of Lesser Healing Wave, Riptide, and Chain Heal. I use Healing Way on the tank and usually just need to hit him (or her!) with it just once before I go back to using something else.

0 Nature's Guardian: If I fix Thundering Strikes and possibly move points out of Ancestral Healing, this is where I'd put it. Sure, the 10% healing is nice (but only 10%), but it's the threat reduction that makes me go 'mmmm'. Now, in raiding situations, this is unlikely to either help (one shot = dead = 0 threat anyway!), but in 5-mans (I'm looking at you, Skadi's gauntlet!), losing threat by being hit may help keep you alive. Otherwise, you're having to try to juggle healing the tank, healing yourself, healing the DPS and using Windshock on multiple targets... usually ends in SQUITZH)

2/2 Blessing of the Eternals: Crit by 4%, and increases chance to apply Earthliving by 40% to targets under 35% health? Why would you not take this?

2/2 Improved Chain Heal: Maybe it's the fact that Shaman have an 'AoE' heal that we can spam pretty quickly, which is a smart heal... but I tend to get put on raid healing a lot. So... 20% increase to it. Yesplz.

3/3 Ancestral Awakening: When I crit, someone else pops in and heals the most hurt person by 30% of my crit amount? Small beans, but it's one less thing I have to do immediately.

2/2 Improved Earth Shield: Now, some restoration shamans don't have this, but I think it's pretty important. It goes along the line of 'healing I don't have to actively do', increases charges by 2 (so, instead of 6, they have 8) and increases the healing done by 10%. This gives the tank time to get aggro before I start healing threat, and gives me a chance to drop totems where I want them while the tank is being passively healed.

5/5 Tidal Waves: After Riptide or Chain Heal, my spell casting on my next two Lesser Healing and Healing Wave decreases by 30%. My roughly 2.5 second Healing Wave becomes a roughly 2 second Healing Wave. My Lesser Healing Wave takes a mere second to cast. It also boosts the effect of my Healing and Lesser Healing waves by 20/10%. I consider this such a big boost to how I actually heal that I try to use Riptide or Chain Heal even when I really don't NEED to, to clean up splash damage or some such.



One of the hardest parts of leveling up, for me, is putting in talent points. Because each individual point, by itself, really doesn't mean very much. And you have to plan out where you want things to go so you can get to what you're really after. So, looking at each individual talent and what it does in and of itself, while a nice exercise in 'Hey, that sounds nifty', what I'm really after is the overall effect of the talents put together into a solid whole healy shaman.

Each little part, especially with the addition of glyphs that suit your play style and heal style, make you into one heck of a healbot.

Now, every player will likely talent themselves slightly differently. So please, feel free to poke holes at what I have down here, give your insights to the benefits of ancestral healing, healing way, thundering strikes, elemental weapons... etc.