Viability of Mana Tide Totem

[Artega]

So as I'm raising my Shaman, Mana Tide Totem (and Purification which will be scooped up along with it) keeps looking sexier and sexier, while Parry and Toughness look homelier and homelier.

So I'm torn between two specs: 30/21 (thus getting Parry and Toughness, while losing Purification and Mana Tide) and 20/31 (vice-versa.) In both PvP and PvE, I tend to assume the role of melee healbot/totembot, so both Purification (+10% to healing spell healing) and Mana Tide (water totem, restores 240 MP every three seconds for twelve seconds for a total of 960 MP restored) would seem useful: Purification for the obvious benefit to healing (particularly Lesser Healing Wave, bringing it up to 915-1020 from 832-928) and Mana Tide to prevent wipes in PvE settings. Part of my decision is hinging on how effective Mana Tide would be in a PvP setting, primarily Warsong or Arathi (since I tend to stay out of the fray in AV, preferring to spend time in the mines and caves rather than the zergfest outside.) While the restoration of 960 MP to all nearby friendlies would be very powerful, it's a totem, and it has a painful five minute cooldown. Anyone with a brain would promptly scrap it the second it popped up, which means it would be hard to find a place for it besides a momentary recharge before storming the flagroom or a defended node.

Parry and Toughness, on the other hand, would improve my ability to defend myself from melee combatants (and make me a more efficient flagrunner.)

If I go 30/21, I can see myself choosing physical stats (e.g. STR, AGI, melee crit, etc) over mental stats (e.g. INT, SPI, spell crit) and vice-versa if I go 20/31.

Additionally, I have a decision to make versus Ancestral Healing (+25% to target's Armor for 15 seconds after receiving a critical heal) and Totemic Focus (all totem costs -10% MP.) If I go the Mana Tide route, I'll likely scoop up Ancestral Healing, since I'll probably have higher spell crits (from items and stats), whereas Totemic Focus sounds better for the Parry route, since I'll probably find more reason to make use of the more mana-intensive totems like Fire Nova and Magma Totem.

[Treesh]

Mogo has mana tide totem. That 960 mana restored if the totem sticks around for the entire 12 seconds isn't all it's cracked up to be. It only gives mana back to group members, not raid members and not friendlies nearby. It has allowed me to get off another heal or allowed the priest to fire off another heal or the mana-using DPS monkeys to fire off more DPS/utility, but I honestly wouldn't say it's prevented a wipe. It has saved a life or two, but nature's swiftness has done that more often than mana tide has. ;) Edit: Think of mana tide totem as a greater mana potion for your group that works more slowly.

Totemic focus is definitely nice to have, but if I'm expected to heal too (which is the case quite often) I still don't have a high enough mana pool to really bust out the high mana totems frequently even when I'm in my caster setup. If I'm not expected to be the main or only healer, I can really throw out the DPS and utility through my totems and lightning bolt, chain lightning and shocks.

Ancestral healing fires off frequently for Mogo since she does have tidal mastery and (when in caster gear) has a generous amount of intelligence. Right now it's only got the one point in it, but she's definitely maxing it despite the fact that Meowry (Marn's super pet :) ) is the one that gets healed the most by Mogo and (before 1.7 at least), I don't think it helps the cat. I don't recall checking if it helps pets or not after 1.7 since now you can train your pet to increase his/her armor.

[oldmandennis]

Well....

I don't know about a 31 point resto build. Getting Tide with only 31 points means skipping improved lesser healing wave and natures swiftness, which are two absolute killer talents.

Tide is pretty good in long fights (think Mag and Ony), but IMHO you need to give up too much to get it. The problem is that it requires Eventide and Improved Mana Spring, which is 10 points in pretty marginal talents. If it wasn't for those requirements, I would probably go 20/31.

For pvp, maybe MJ could say more definitivly, but I don't see it making much of a difference. The chances of your whole party being within 20 yards of eachother and being alive for 12 seconds are pretty low, I think.

Edit: added pvp part

[Kevin]

Well....

I don't know about a 31 point resto build.  Getting Tide with only 31 points means skipping improved lesser healing wave and natures swiftness, which are two absolute killer talents.

Tide is pretty good in long fights (think Mag and Ony), but IMHO you need to give up too much to get it.  The problem is that it requires Eventide and Improved Mana Spring, which is 10 points in pretty marginal talents.  If it wasn't for those requirements, I would probably go 20/31.

For pvp, maybe MJ could say more definitivly, but I don't see it making much of a difference.  The chances of your whole party being within 20 yards of eachother and being alive for 12 seconds are pretty low, I think.

Edit: added pvp part
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You do not have to give up Natures Swiftness but you do have to decide 4 points in purification or 4 points in improved lesser healing wave. You can do something like:

Restoration
Improved Healing Wave Rank 5
Tidal Focus Rank 5
Eventide Rank 5
Tidal Mastery Rank 5
Improved Mana Spring Totem Rank 5
Nature's Swiftness Rank 1
Purification Rank 4
Mana Tide Totem Rank 1
Restoration Total: 31

With the 4 in purification and the 5 in improved healing wave (which is good end game simply because you take a 3.5 cast to a 3.0 and you get full effect from +healing items) can be moved. But you can get natures swiftness and mana tide with only 31 points. Natures swiftness is so worth losing one point in some other talent though.

[Artega]

Given that Mana Tide requires the waste of ten talent points (Eventide and Improved Mana Spring), I've gone ahead and placed a talent point into Parry. However, Purification continues to look quite nice. On the other hand, I've been told that it's not worth it unless you're going for Mana Tide, which I'm not. Thus, I have two tentative talent builds to consider:

Enhancement - 30 points

Ancestral Knowledge - 5/5
Thundering Strikes - 5/5
Improved Ghost Wolf - 2/2
Improved Lightning Shield - 3/3
Two-handed Axes and Maces - 1/1
Anticipation - 1/5
Flurry - 5/5
Parry - 1/1
Improved Windfury Weapon - 2/2
Toughness - 5/5

Restoration - 21 points

Tidal Focus - 5/5
Totemic Focus - 5/5
Improved Lesser Healing Wave - 5/5
Tidal Mastery - 5/5
Nature's Swiftness - 1/1

And the inverse:

Enhancement - 21 points

Ancestral Knowledge - 5/5
Thundering Strikes - 5/5
Improved Ghost Wolf - 2/2
Improved Lightning Shield - 2/3
Flurry - 5/5
Parry - 1/1

Restoration - 30 points

Tidal Focus - 5/5
Totemic Focus - 5/5
Ancestral Healing - 2/5
Improved Reincarnation - 2/2
Improved Lesser Healing Wave - 5/5
Tidal Mastery - 5/5
Nature's Swiftness - 1/1
Purification - 5/5

Having read several good posts about Improved Healing Wave vs. Tidal Focus, I've decided on Tidal Focus, despite the second build's focus on healing more than melee superiority. Additionally, I find myself casting LHW far more often than HW during PvP combat, which is where my Shaman will find himself far more often than not. The points into Improved Reincarnation are there simply so that I can promptly raise myself and continue healing our flagcarrier, or promptly raise myself and continue to defend a node until reinforcements arrive. It'll also have the secondary benefit of making deaths out while grinding or farming a little less inefficient. Given that the build will be focused on healing (and thus choosing spell crit over melee crit), I felt that a couple of points into Ancestral Healing would go a little way in making me a more effective healer. Additionally, I can remove a point from Totemic Focus and both points from Improved Reincarnation, depending on how useful the Armor bonus would turn out to be.

[Treesh]

However, Purification continues to look quite nice.  On the other hand, I've been told that it's not worth it unless you're going for Mana Tide, which I'm not. 

<snip>

Having read several good posts about Improved Healing Wave vs. Tidal Focus, I've decided on Tidal Focus, despite the second build's focus on healing more than melee superiority.&nbsp; Additionally, I find myself casting LHW far more often than HW during PvP combat, which is where my Shaman will find himself far more often than not.&nbsp; The points into Improved Reincarnation are there simply so that I can promptly raise myself and continue healing our flagcarrier, or promptly raise myself and continue to defend a node until reinforcements arrive.&nbsp; It'll also have the secondary benefit of making deaths out while grinding or farming a little less inefficient.&nbsp; Given that the build will be focused on healing (and thus choosing spell crit over melee crit), I felt that a couple of points into Ancestral Healing would go a little way in making me a more effective healer.&nbsp; Additionally, I can remove a point from Totemic Focus and both points from Improved Reincarnation, depending on how useful the Armor bonus would turn out to be.
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If you are main healer (or only healer especially), purification is definitely worth it even if you aren't getting Tide (skipping Tide is a good idea). If you are mainly just back up healer or just healing yourself, it's nice but not really necessary. Ancestral Healing (even just a couple of points in it) can make a nice difference if you are around mostly physical damage. However, it doesn't really make you a more effective healer. It just makes your tanks take a little bit less damage. And I checked earlier today and it does affect hunter pets' armor now. \o/ I haven't checked to see how much of a difference Ancestral Healing and Stoneskin totem together make though.

[MongoJerry]

I hear of mana tide mostly in the context of large scale PvE raiding encounters. We have several mana tide spec'd shaman, and they're usually placed in groups with a lot of mana users to maximize the benefit of the totem. This doesn't mean that it's not useful in other contexts, though.

[oldmandennis]

At 18s a pop, once every 40 min, and coming back with very little life and mana, I would say Reincarnation is of little use in BattleGrounds.

It is fan-freakin-tastic in the core. Essentially, the 2 points mean that Res will be up on most boss attempts. Very very frequently, a shaman can pop, quickly eat and drink, then start ressing people. I have lost track of the times that a shaman popping has taken a raid that looked doomed and turned the situation completly around. The only bad thing is it supposedly does not work with Onyxia now.

[Watto44]

It's been a loooong time since I dusted off my shaman and actually played him, but I figured I'd throw my two cents into the mix.

For most of my shaman's life he was 9/21/21, which was a great build and very enjoyable to boot. (Grabbing Concussion and Convection in the Elemental Combat tree.) Incidently, if you're going into enhancement, grabbing Two Handed Axes and Maces is really worth it, particularly once you hit the higher levels. Despite the it's recent "nerf" The Unstoppable Force is a damn sexy shaman weapon. (Hehe, a shaman buddy of mine was wandering around with an Earthshaker. Damn that thing HURT.)

I'd definately agree on Tidal Focus over Improved Healing Wave. Knocking the cast time of healing wave down to three seconds doesn't really make that much of a difference when you're in a group, and for PvP even three seconds seems waaaaaaaay too long. As for Totemic Focus, I loved it, although I guess it's more a PvP talent, because that's when you're throwing totems around like there's no tomorrow.

When I realised that I was spending most of my time healing, I respec'ed to a 14/5/32 point build, which was great, but to be honest, Mana Tide Totem isn't that sexy at all, and the ten points you spend to get it are just downright ugly. If you're thinking of speccing for healing, I'd ignore it and grab purification instead. Happily, this would let you get parry as well! :D

If PvP is the way you swing, I'd seriously consider investing some points in the Concussion/Convection/Reverberation string, particularly the first two. My stat focus was almost entirely int and stam and I still burnt through mana at a frightening rate. As for reincarnation, it's like oldmandennis said: unless there's only one opponent and they're really, REALLY close to dying, it just gives them the chance to get a second HK off you.

Anyways, to sum-up...mana tide totem is kinda like a spade: handy to have every once in a while, but not that sexy and you'd rather keep it in the shed than in your lounge room. Nature's Swiftness...ooh, you touch my tra-la-la. (I know I didn't mention NS earlier, but it's just suuuuuuch a good talent I couldn't imagine playing my shammy - or druid for that matter - without it.) Purification...combined with tidal focus makes you a really nice healer, and would be great to have in pvp when you couple it with improved lesser healing wave. As for parry, it's more like a nice old chair: not much to look at, but you'll miss it when you go to sit down and it's not there.

[undertow]

At 18s a pop, once every 40 min, and coming back with very little life and mana, I would say Reincarnation is of little use in BattleGrounds.

It is fan-freakin-tastic in the core.&nbsp; Essentially, the 2 points mean that Res will be up on most boss attempts.&nbsp; Very very frequently, a shaman can pop, quickly eat and drink, then start ressing people.&nbsp; I have lost track of the times that a shaman popping has taken a raid that looked doomed and turned the situation completly around.&nbsp; The only bad thing is it supposedly does not work with Onyxia now.
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I've actually found self rez semi useful in battlegrounds, especially ones like Arathi Basin. Where you'll have a tight battle for a node and you get focused on and go down quick. I've been able to self rez, and do a few heals or shocks and turn the tide of the fight.

On topic, I didn't really like mana tide for PVP, which is where I concentrate almost all of my play time. It was nice for PVE however, but the talents required to get it really gimped my PvP performance. I'm now specced 30/21/0, and at first I thought I'd miss NS and ILHW, I've learned to live without them and I've come to love parry and 1.5 sec Chain Lightning.

[MongoJerry]

I've actually found self rez semi useful in battlegrounds, especially ones like Arathi Basin. Where you'll have a tight battle for a node and you get focused on and go down quick. I've been able to self rez, and do a few heals or shocks and turn the tide of the fight.

Our shamans occationally use self resurrection in Arathi Basin to stop people from taking a node. Let's say that a shaman is defending a node and after a pitched battle, the other team wins and manages to clear our team. However, our team has resurrected at the nearby graveyard and is hurrying back into the fray. In some cases, a shaman will wait for the other team to start tagging the flag for a couple of seconds, ankh up, and drop a magma totem to stop them from tagging the flag. The shaman quickly dies, but the damage has been done. The team gets back to the node and the battle begins anew -- perhaps with more reinforcements this time. Sure, it's a rare and situational thing, but it happens on occation.

Mages use a similar tactic with ice block. Let's say the mage is the last defender alive at a node with five enemies attacking the node. The mage can arcane explosion the flag area to stop the tagging and then iceblock to keep from dying. When the attackers start tagging the flag again, the mage waits five or so seconds and then removes the block and arcane explosions again. The mage quickly dies (or even better cold snaps and ice blocks again!), but sometimes that delay is enough for teammates to arrive and prevent further tapping attempts.