02-26-2006, 11:59 AM
I'll tell you that I believe +healing gear is the way to go on a shaman as well. Its what I went with my shaman and I haven't regretted it at all. I sometimes wonder if this is why my shaman experiences and Treesh's experiences differ some. I seem to feel like shaman healing isn't as tough as she feels it is. There are lots of other factors in this too though like I usually had alot of CC going on, the players in my group knew each other very well (played from 0-60 together for several of us), and other such things. I do wonder if her liking +int over +healing (judging from her first post where I didn't notice +healing at all and her saying that +int is the way to go) has a decent part in things.
Your gear list looks very very similiar to mine. I had a few more weapons/offhands to toy with while healing, but often I would keep my shield on anyway unless I knew the warrior well. My group was myself, a rogue, a mage, and a warlock usually. So the tanking roll would either be myself with a priest behind, a warrior with me healing, or a shaman as healer and a shaman as tank (we didn't run into many druids or hunters for some reason). My favorite thing to talk about is the time we did orange side of maraudon with myself as both the main tank and only healer. That was crazy fun. : ) Since the warriors we would get would be ones I didn't know so well, though we did start finding more that we played with consistently after a while, I tended to find the shield helpful when healing. I also went with an emerald flame/fordling combination for rings instead of what you chose. Overall though I think your gear goals are fine.
As to talents, your restoration is exactly as mine was. So not much to say there. I went 21 in elemental though because I found that the quicker shocks with more damage and occasional free ones were better for me being main tank than the enhancement talents were. I just found that going that route allowed the people in my group to not hold back much at all where with the other route they would have to worry about taking aggro more. The added mitigation from enhancement didn't really seem to make a difference either. Course the route I went was horrid at tanking nature immune guys though. For that enhancement is definately better. For offtanking which you seem to be aiming for enhancement may be better though. I'm not really sure. It may be more of a matter of preferance.
I also tended to not foucs on totems as much as Treesh does. Sometimes I would drop a grace of air and a grace of strength if I was tanking, but often I didn't bother, because it just wasn't needed and I didn't feel it was worth the mana to cast. I know Treesh will be shaking her head at my lack of totem use, but oh well...she does that at me alot. : ) When healing I would sometimes drop totems before a fight so I could regen the mana from them, but I also didn't bother all the time with that either. While totems are nice, I generally didn't find that they added enough to fights to make them worth the mana.
Oh speaking of mana, that is key with the +healing route. It was rare that a tank ever was taking so much damage that I couldn't keep up with it. The only issue was if my mana pool would last the fight (which is why Treesh stresses +int of course). As I started to get my blue gear (like yours, as I said) it started becoming less of an issue though. Even before that though it really wasn't bad. Some fights would be close, but I recall surviving many fights with just a little mana alot more often than I recall wiping because of being out. They say that people remember the bad things more as well, so it seems odd to me that I would not recall those situations. So I really don't think that mana is an issue with a +healing build. Course some of this may also be do to the things I meantioned before. My party knowing each other very well, using alot of CC, and also the lack of totem use since they use mana. Oh, I do agree with treesh about the posion/disease totems though. Those are almost always worth their cost if posions and diseases are floating around.
Anyway, yeah...I think you will be fine with what you are planning. I should also say that my shaman experience is in everything up to and including UBRS. Past that I only took my shaman into ZG twice. Once when it first came out with a random group just to see it (didn't go well hehe). Then another time with some guild people we knew (went very well). I don't recall noticing anything that needed to change in the build for that, but its one run with a well geared and knowledgable group. So take that for what its worth. : )
Your gear list looks very very similiar to mine. I had a few more weapons/offhands to toy with while healing, but often I would keep my shield on anyway unless I knew the warrior well. My group was myself, a rogue, a mage, and a warlock usually. So the tanking roll would either be myself with a priest behind, a warrior with me healing, or a shaman as healer and a shaman as tank (we didn't run into many druids or hunters for some reason). My favorite thing to talk about is the time we did orange side of maraudon with myself as both the main tank and only healer. That was crazy fun. : ) Since the warriors we would get would be ones I didn't know so well, though we did start finding more that we played with consistently after a while, I tended to find the shield helpful when healing. I also went with an emerald flame/fordling combination for rings instead of what you chose. Overall though I think your gear goals are fine.
As to talents, your restoration is exactly as mine was. So not much to say there. I went 21 in elemental though because I found that the quicker shocks with more damage and occasional free ones were better for me being main tank than the enhancement talents were. I just found that going that route allowed the people in my group to not hold back much at all where with the other route they would have to worry about taking aggro more. The added mitigation from enhancement didn't really seem to make a difference either. Course the route I went was horrid at tanking nature immune guys though. For that enhancement is definately better. For offtanking which you seem to be aiming for enhancement may be better though. I'm not really sure. It may be more of a matter of preferance.
I also tended to not foucs on totems as much as Treesh does. Sometimes I would drop a grace of air and a grace of strength if I was tanking, but often I didn't bother, because it just wasn't needed and I didn't feel it was worth the mana to cast. I know Treesh will be shaking her head at my lack of totem use, but oh well...she does that at me alot. : ) When healing I would sometimes drop totems before a fight so I could regen the mana from them, but I also didn't bother all the time with that either. While totems are nice, I generally didn't find that they added enough to fights to make them worth the mana.
Oh speaking of mana, that is key with the +healing route. It was rare that a tank ever was taking so much damage that I couldn't keep up with it. The only issue was if my mana pool would last the fight (which is why Treesh stresses +int of course). As I started to get my blue gear (like yours, as I said) it started becoming less of an issue though. Even before that though it really wasn't bad. Some fights would be close, but I recall surviving many fights with just a little mana alot more often than I recall wiping because of being out. They say that people remember the bad things more as well, so it seems odd to me that I would not recall those situations. So I really don't think that mana is an issue with a +healing build. Course some of this may also be do to the things I meantioned before. My party knowing each other very well, using alot of CC, and also the lack of totem use since they use mana. Oh, I do agree with treesh about the posion/disease totems though. Those are almost always worth their cost if posions and diseases are floating around.
Anyway, yeah...I think you will be fine with what you are planning. I should also say that my shaman experience is in everything up to and including UBRS. Past that I only took my shaman into ZG twice. Once when it first came out with a random group just to see it (didn't go well hehe). Then another time with some guild people we knew (went very well). I don't recall noticing anything that needed to change in the build for that, but its one run with a well geared and knowledgable group. So take that for what its worth. : )