Okay, so I’m thinking about this for my M+ vs. Raid spec, and I know we talk about this a lot here, but I’m processing today and would appreciate the feedback/thoughts of anyone willing to jump into it again with me.
For Mythic Dungeons
15 - Undulation
30 - Earth Shield
45 - Earthgrab Totem (recommended for reaping, so I’m going to try it)
60 - Earthen Wall Totem
75 - Nature’s Guardian
90 - Downpour
100-Wellspring
I don’t like Unleash Life. It feels super weak to me when compared with the 1/3 procs on Undulation. I don’t like having the extra heal to think about, and it never seems to increase my numbers or ability to keep the tank up in a tangible way.
I love my Downpour in dungeons. I don’t feel trading it out for cloudburst makes sense in 5-man’s. I don’t do nearly as much aoe healing in dungeons, and I think the surgical nature of downpour will be better for me than managing cloudburst in M+. If you think I’m really wrong on that, I would love to read your ideas on it. I’m being pushed out of medium content into more difficult content right now, so it’s a transition time for making changes and learning new ways to resto for me.
I don’t get the appeal of High Tide, so I wouldn’t give up Wellspring for it, especially not in dungeons. In raids, however, I’m open to the suggestion. I just know I don’t spam chain heal enough to make it useful to me in 5-man content. Wellspring has been revolutionary for me in dungeons, so I really want to keep it.
For Raiding
15 - Undulation
30 - Echo of the Elements
45 - Spirit Wolf
60 - Earthen Wall Totem
75 - Nature’s Guardian
90 - Cloudburst Totem
100-Wellspring
The extra riptides and totems from Echo make sense to me now that we’re hitting raid content I have to heal harder than before. My tanks don’t need Earth Shield in raids, anyway, so the constant access to wave spam from the riptides always being up is awesome. I saw a huge difference in my healing numbers in the raid after switching it out.
I’m making the leap to Cloudburst Totem in raids this week. I just did a post about my first experience with it in LFR to test it out, and I think it’s worth giving up downpour in raids for it. The burst heals, if I can figure out how to control when it goes off, are insane.
I chain heal a lot more in the raids than I do in dungeons, but I’m still a wave spammer for spot heals as opposed to chain healing, which opens me to wasted mana and higher overheal numbers every time I try doing it that way. I just don’t get why people love High Tide so much. I see that the best/highest rated resto shamans use High Tide, so I believe it 100% that the math supports them in that. I would appreciate someone explaining why, however, because giving up Wellspring for periodic chain heal procs doesn’t make sense to me, yet.