As a PvE Resto shaman, is it worth going 22 points deep into Enhancement for 2/2 Improved Weapon Totems? I was thinking that I could heal well enough while being (almost) the best totem bot I could be. How would this fair?
Are you talking about leveling? If so, then you don’t really need improved enhance totems. You only pick those up if you want to maximize a melee dungeon cleave group, if you’re a designated “Melee group shaman” in raids, or if you want to min/max in PvP. If you want to level 2h windfury, it might be worth considering, but most shamans get by easily enough with 1h shield and flametongue.
That spec would work perfectly fine for endgame healing. You could go in the tank group and I’m sure they would appreciate the extra powerful totems.
You will miss mana tide though. Not to mention there are probably a million enhancement shaman out there that would love to have that spot in the tank group.
Mana tide is going to be your biggest loss for going so deep in Enhance, the other thing being that you simply end up spending a load of points that will predominantly be useless to you within a PvE setting.
Imp Ghost Wolf, Imp Lightning Shield, and Anticipation are all things you will be getting no benefit from in dungeon/raid settings.
Personal opinion is that going that spec puts you in prime place to buff the tank group (or melee group if no Enhance Shammy)
With that being said you will wanting to be close to the boss for totem aura range, at that point you might as well as well be whacking the boss between heals so getting points into Thundering Strikes and Flurry might give you slightly more mileage, especially if you are able to supply your raid with the Nightfall buff.
You can either go 5 in Thundering Strikes and 5 in Flurry, or you can go 3 in Flurry and maintain Imp Ghist Wolf for the world utility.
Thanks, everybody. While leveling, I think I’ll go 31 into Resto for Mana Tide Totem, and then when I reach endgame, I may try out 2/2 Improved Weapon Totems with the changes Haavi recommended if my guild ever needs me for improved totems.
What you would lose in restoration talents to get the enhancement talents would be costly if you were a main healer. The raid leader would probably not allow this spec for their tank healers.
If you are totem twisting to give your group the maximum benefit of these talents, you may not have enough mana for proper healing.
However, this spec would make for a good back up ‘clutch’ healer/melee group enhancement role.
if imp weapon totems was a good talent shamans would do this in the same way priests go PI or even SW, but it’s just not a good talent. it’s not a terrible build if you just really like the idea of buffing as much as you can
Improved Weapon Totems provides 30% bonus AP on Windfury Totem procs. Windfury Totem has a base AP bonus of 315, so the talent gives you an extra 63 AP on the proc attack.
63 AP = 4.5 DPS. Weapon speed ends up dropping out of the equation when you include proc chance by DPS, and so the net DPS increase for improved weapon totems is (1/0.2 * 4.5) = 1.11~ DPS.
Two talent points, and each group member affected by WF totem gains 1 DPS. Before the target’s armor reduction.
It’s just not a very good talent.
A better version of this spec is something like 0/30/21, where you equip a 2hander with healing gear. Windfury and Rockbiter provide enough base value that your melee remains threatening even with healing gear, and 21 in resto gets you all the talents you really need to be a melee support healer. It’s a very useful dungeon and PVP build, and happens to be my preferred spec (you can also equip all melee gear and go nuts for DPS when that’s what you need).
This build forgoes many of the Restoration tree talents in order to pick up [Improved Weapon Totems]), which makes [Windfury Totem] even stronger. While this trade-off is generally not worth taking in a vacuum, you are also able to pick up [Flurry] and [Two-Handed Axes and Maces], which grant you better soloing abilities and, especially, allow you to use [Nightfall] (or [Annihilator], if needed) with great efficiency for your group.
Since you are forced to go deep into the Enhancement tree, there are plenty of preference points available. We opted to make the build as [Totem Twisting] friendly as possible by maxing out [Totemic Focus], but beware of this style’s high Mana cost, which will tax your healing if the encounters go long.
All of [Healing Wave] focused talents were removed as well, allowing you to still cast your main raid heal, [Chain Heal] with close to maximum efficiency.
Oh, neat. I wasn’t even thinking of its potential as a PvP spec. Hmm… I think it could be pretty good for PvP, eh? My shaman’s on Earthfury, by the way.
My shaman’s on Earthfury, by the way.