I do not understand... Stack Crit Or Spirit?

[Darpa317 0]

I quit playing wow for 2-3 yrs. I've been reading this forum the most.  Elitist Jerks does not seem to have a lot of good theory crafting on WOD resto Shaman yet - do they?  Are there any other reccomended sites to help supplement this one?

My question my iLVL is almost 340.  Do I want to stack crit or spirit?  I am still having trouble with mana management. I was told - crit?  My shaman is not my main so I do the least of reading on it.  What optimal lvl do you feel I should have for spirit before worring about other stats?  I am searching the hell out of these forums and getting great info.  I've been working on getting geared.  Playing is like riding a bike to some degree but a lot has changed.  If anyone has some specific or direct advice, I would love to be pointed in a good direction.  I've always been a good player - never world class.  But will be raiding soon.  And want to do a good job.  I know this has probably been addressed but there is so much material here it is a little confusing.

Happy Holidays and TY

D.A.R.P.A

[Mazukon 5]

ilvl 340? Thats means you probably aren't even level 85 yet. Gearing properly at low levels is not extremely important and you should just go with the highest ilvl piece. 

 

But I will assume you meant almost ilvl 640 in which case itemization does matter. Spirit is only available on certain item slots (Back, neck, ring, trinket) and for all healers you should try to get Spirit in every one of those slots. It is almost as important as Intellect. 

 

After that, you want to go for mastery as the next most important stat. Partially because our attunement gives us 5% extra mastery so an item that give +100 mastery actually gives +105, whereas if it gave +100 haste, you don't gain the 5 extra stat points. Also, many of the new fights involve damage patterns that have people medium/low on health for extended periods of time which makes our mastery greatly improve our healing output.

 

After mastery, most people (myself included) advocate stacking haste over crit or multistrike. It provides faster cast time heals, and more ticks and heals per mana of our HoTs, namely healing stream totem, healing raid, and riptide. Crit is OK since it provides some mana return from resurgence, but in reality, the mana returns are quite small compared to the loss of throughput and predictability of haste.

[Stoove 347]

Hey there Darpa, and welcome back to WoW and also welcome to the Icy Veins forums!

 

EJ started to die sometime between Cataclysm and MoP, so we've moved Theorycraft to other places. Some good places to read are my blog, healiocentric, Life in Group 5, and Hamlet's blog. Of course, these are places for the more advanced information and approaches and opinions vary between the different blogs.

 

Spirit is the best healer stat, after Intellect, without any competition. It just wins. My advice would be to get as much of it as you can. Crit, on the other hand, has quite a small mana regen component - it's a nice benefit but not what you want to stack.

 

A good general stat priority is;

Intellect > Spirit >> Mastery > Haste > Multistrike > Crit > Versatility

 

In terms of throughput, Haste is the best stat until the target is below 55% HP, at which point Mastery becomes much better. I wrote a lot about stats for Resto Shaman here.

 

 

I am still having trouble with mana management

 

Spell selection is really important when managing your mana - Healing Wave and Riptide are the most efficient spells, and Cloudburst Totem will also heal very efficiently for you on raids. Try to resist spamming Chain Heal or Healing Rain.

 

We have talked about stats on the IV Forums in more detail here.

 

I hope that helps you! :)