Heroic Ultraxion 10man Resto Shaman Pov

Welcome to Dragon Soul Heroic mode for Ultraxion. In this guide, I will run you through everything you need to know about how to best utilize your Resto Shaman spells and abilities for a healing showdown.

And so you come to face the ultimate creation of Deathwing. You’d think he would show more appreciation about his wife son and daughter, his own family, but no. Before the fight starts he makes it very clear.This dragon is his pride. Like a dog if you will. Faithful puppy. Only tad bigger.Makes you wonder what he might eat for breakfast. For now his appetite consists of you and your party. Fear not however because once again you find yourself in the company of the four aspects. And Thraal. No comments. In the heroic version of this fight not many things change. He hits you harder, has a tougher enrage timer to beat which is complicated  by his upgraded health pool and of course, now 2 additional players need to soak each Hour of Twilight  while  the tanks and the dps try to  handle additonal Fading Lights by using Heroic Will .Take into consideration that this time you only have 3sec down from 5sec  before you lay your bones to rest when Ultraxion casts Hour of Twilight. Other than that as a healer, like in normal version you only have to be concerned about Hour of Twilight since yet again you won’t be affected by Fading light.

Note. Keep in mind that depending of what addons you’re using Heroic Will button might not be visible. Or if you are like me you don’t want to drag your mouse all over the screen while healing. So make the following macro and bind it to the key of your preference or even your mouse.

Specific Dragon Soul Macro ( For Utraxion and Madness of Deathwing special button )

/click ExtraActionButton1

Preparation

For a more in depth analysis of exactly all Ultraxions old abilities I suggest reading the following guides.

1. Guides for Normal Ultraxion

Ultraxion 10Man Normal And Heroic by IcyVeins

Ultraxion 10Man Normal by Type H for Heals

TIP : Always watch some videos beforehand to be in the know.

2.Videos for Heroic Ultraxion

Ultraxion 10Man Heroic Dragon Soul FATBOSS

Ultraxion 25Man Heroic Dragon Soul LearnToRaid

Ultraxion 25Man Heroic Dragon Soul Tankspot

Suggested Raid Composition

2 Tanks – 2 Healers – 6 Dps

Gear and Reforging Check

For this fight, you will need to be able to sustain your mana all the way through the encounter up until the end the 5min mark when Ultraxion will start to cast his  Unstable Monstrosity  ability every second.This means that probably since you’ll be spamming healing rain and pretty much everything else you can afford before you down him you  will be gasping for mana.There are ways to make your life a little easier and your spells more effective.

Before the 5min mark even though you will be 2 healing it be prepared for minimal damage or for what I would call dps time. Not only because you’re bored but also because your raid will probably need your 3 – 5k dps you will provide. Equip your talent tree with Telluric currents to get mana back as well as do damage and Focused Insight to be able to amplify your healing throughput.

You will  be stationary for the whole fight so feel free to sacrifice your ghost wolf and since no dispelling is necessary remove a point from that too. If you are progressing on Ultraxion with minimum gear, you and the rest of your team , then probably you will want to invest some points in your elemental tree (2 points in  Acuity,3 points in Concussion, 3 points in Elemental Precision ) to achieve 2 things. Higher dps from you and higher mana return from your lightning bolts. If you are looking at his after the % nerf or your gear is higher then feel free to leave your talent tree as is.

 Below is an example of how your character should look like. Gear, reforging, talent tree and glyphs included.

CharDev Example with 397 gear and reforge details

Haste in this example is as close to 916 as it gets. I’ve removed all extra haste to amplify my spirit and mastery needs.Also the only time you will really need haste is after the 5min mark of the fight were you will have heroism and spiritwalkers grace to compensate.

Mastery should above 20 or as close to it as possible for the extra healing it will provide you for when your raid hits all time lows. Mastery is a must in this fight since your raid after the 5min mark will always be below 50% of health.Its scary I know.But you’re a shaman. embrace your mastery and watch your numbers fly.

Spirit is little above 3800 (counting the proc from Heart of Unliving ) in order to have enough to dump at that late stage of the fight. Believe me, you will not have time to cast lightning bolts to get any back.

All items used are from Normal Dragon Soul.

As always, if your gear is different just apply the rules above for potential reforges.

Assigning  the Healing  Buffs

 There is often a disagreement on which crystal a shaman should take in this fight. As you know they are 3. The red buffs you with  Gift of Life which provides a 100% increase to all the healing done by the affected player(s).  The green buffs you with  Essence of Dreams which provides valuable AoE healing, which will prove extremely useful, especially as the encounter progresses. Note that this buff applies to most types of heals, including HoTs and AoE heals (such as  Healing Rain). Finally the blue buffs you with  Source of Magic which provides increased casting haste and reduced mana cost, making it desirable to all healers.

So which one should you take? Lets start with the one you shouldn’t which is the blue. As you and  most other healers will have either the Red or Green buffs by this point, the Blue buff is most desirable to Holy Paladins, who can practically spam  Holy Radiance until the end of the fight, generating a huge amount of AoE healing. So unless there is no paladin in your team just erase the blue crystal of your mind.

As it goes for red or green. Both are excellent for shamans but my choice of preference will be green. You see with red yes you get a 100% increase in all your spells.That means 100% increase in all healing rain ticks, in all riptide , in chain heal. Sounds nice? However think of this. How much nicer does it sound for every greater healing wave to become instantly your new aoe spell? At the end of the fight you will be spamming healing rain and chain heal like crazy if you take the red. But if you take the green you’ll be cruising with healing rain ( that heals the same either with red or green) and greater healing waves. Every healing wave will hit all your raid making it much greater than ANY buffed chain heal would even be. Also think of this. If you are healing with a paladin they will not be healing the tanks at all at the end since they will be spamming Holy Radiance .This is where you come to steal the show with healing the tanks with greater healing waves which since you have the green buff will ultimately heal the raid also with an insane amount. If you need further proof feel free to check WoL with top healers. Paladins rule the first pages then come shamans with Essence of dreams in their highest heals having taken green buff.There is no red buffed top shaman healer. You will not fail with red, but green is definitely a winner for you.Let the druid take the red then the blue and enjoy them.

Top 2 Shaman healers as found in WoL‘s page for top healers for Ultraxion HC 10man.

Gravatize his logs found here with 74.645k hps had 17.3% based on Essence of dreams.Used green buff.

Voidwalker his logs found here with 70.055k hps had 32.5% (making this by far his first healing spell) based on Essence of dreams.Used green buff.

Preparation Tips and Tricks

Make sure your weapon is imbued with Earthliving Weapon enchant and your Water Shield is up .  Put Earth Shield on the tank that is currently tanking and try to keep it up at all times .Start overhealing  the tanks so that your well spent Ancestral Healing talent points will proc that wonderful 10% damage reduction and 10% maximum health pool increase. After you see you can’t climb more on their health cast riptide on them.As long as riptide is ticking the stacks will never drop thus securing the tanks an extra 10% damage reduction and health pool increase throughout all the fight.

Fight starting in 5..4..3..2..1. Pull.

You have quite a lot of seconds before Ultraxion hits you with his first  Hour of Twilight that you will need to avoid using Heroic Will.

Note.Shamans have no mitigation making us bad candidates for staying out with the other 2 designated dps or tank to absorb Hour of Twilight .

You should put your totems down before Ultraxion lands and lay a healing rain .Make sure you stay behind or at the sides of your raid at all times if you have Maw of the Dragonlord equipped. Start spamming Ultraxion with lightning bolts and depending on the situation this will be your priorities  :

Before and up until 5min mark :

1.Healing rain

2.Lighting bolts if nobody needs healing or if healing is sufficient.

3.Riptide on cd on the tanks and earth shield on the current tank or at least the main tank.

4.Chain heal if you think healing rain will not top off your raid in accordance with your fellow healer or greater healing wave if you see the tank falling a little too low or people coming out of soaking hour of twilight. Keep your riptides rolling to keep up with your tidal waves (healing rain DOES NOT consume one charge) or chain heal to bring them back up.

After 5min mark :

1.Healing rain on CD,make sure you use any shock spell you might have before that if you feel you can afford the GCD to amplify it.

2.Healing waves on the tanks if you have green buff. If you have red buff forget that spell and move on to…

3.Chain heals.

At this point its only a matter of if you can afford the GCD’s to maintain earth shield and riptide and my only advice is head into the fight and after few wipes you will know for yourself.

About your CD’s.The fight will last from 5:00 min to 6:00, usually varying around 5:30. Your mana tide totem has a 3 min cd which means you can only use it 2 times into the fight.Drop it a little bit before 2 min into the fight and then again a little into the 5th min.This way you will utilize your 2pc set bonus if you have it. Use your spiritwalkers grace at 1 min mark,3 min mark and just after heroism has faded( around 5:30min mark) or a little before that to gain that extra haste you will need for the last phase. As for your spirit link totem , use it whenever you feel like to but make sure you have it for around 5:30min mark into the fight in accordance to any raid CD your fellow healer has and after Nozdormus  Timeloop buff has faded from most of your raid.

Note. About heroism there is a nice trick quoting Malevica from Type H for Heals:

The double-lust trick

You have a dilemma: you really want to give the healers the Bloodlust or Heroism or Time Warp for the end of the fight, but the best time to use it is the very start, where you can line up BL with trinkets, pre-pots and DPS cooldowns.

But you can have your cake and eat it too! Heroic Will takes you into a different realm, so you can’t be affected by buffs or debuffs,including BL and Heroism.

So here’s how to use this to your advantage:

1.  Have a countdown timer for pulls. (You already have this though for timing pre-pots, right?)
2.  2 seconds before the pull, have your healers hit Heroic Will
3. Just as the pull is made, pop BL/Heroism/Time Warp. Your healers won’t get the buff but they don’t need it, and crucially they also won’t get the associated debuff
4. At the 5-minute mark, pop a second BL/Heroism/Time Warp so the healers can benefit from it

This concudes this guide for the Ultraxion HC healing showdown.  Remember to use your Heroic will a second before Ultraxion casts Hour of twilight. Enjoy the fight and happy looting!

Heroic Yor’sahj The Unsleeping 10man Resto Shaman Pov

Welcome to Dragon Soul Heroic mode for Yor’sahj The Unsleeping. In this guide, I will run you through everything you need to know about how to best utilize your Resto Shaman spells and abilities for a healing showdown.

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping has, much like Morchok The Douchekeeper , one main distinction from normal mode. It appears that he’s inspired by Alien so he spawns 4 oozes at a time instead of 3 hence leaving you with the option of having him absorb 3 at the end of their trail rather than 2. I remember when I first saw the normal version in PTR and in various early videos I was left thinking that blizzard has a sick sense of humor. Much like real life. Where you THINK  you have a choice when in reality you have almost none. There are 6 combinations that you will encounter randomly in no specific order in this heroic mode fight and in each you have mainly only one choice of what to kill. It sounds scarier than it actually is however.In order to help you with that I suggest installing the addon called Yor’sahj Automatic RaidWarnings  that calls out which ooze to kill and lets you know which ones are left.

The Contenders

 Purple – Gives everyone (except pets) Deep Corruption. Every time someone is healed, they get a stack. If they reach 5 stacks they explode, doing massive damage to the raid.

Red – Yor’sahj will cast Searing Blood on 8 random raid members, doing more damage the further away they are.

Green – Yor’sahj will cast Digestive Acid, which does moderate damage to random targets which will splash to everyone within 4 yards of them.

Yellow – Gives Yor’sahj Glowing Blood of Shu’ma which makes him attack 50% faster and use his abilities twice as often.

Blue – Creates a mana void. This will drain everyone’s entire mana pool. When it is killed it will explode and return the mana to everyone within 30 yards.

Black – Spawns small adds which will focus on random targets and use Psychic Slice.

Preparation

By this point you should have run at least once the normal mode of this fight. If you were thrown in the heroic version and you need a catch up below are some guides to help you better understand all the in and outs of this boss and for a more in depth analysis of what each ooze will do.

1. Guides for Normal Yor’sahj

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping Normal Mode from Icy-veins

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping Normal Mode from Type H For Heals

TIP : Always watch some videos beforehand to be in the know.

2.Videos for Heroic Yor’sahj

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping 10Man Heroic Dragon Soul FATBOSS

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping 25Man Heroic Dragon Soul LearnToRaid

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping 25Man Heroic Dragon Soul TankSpot

TIP : For this fight specifically it’s very important to be able to properly handle Deep Corruption so you will need to have it showing on your healing addon raid frames. The spell ID is 105171 and it’s name is Deep Corruption. If you have VuhDo  just go to your configuration screen on the Debuffs tab and then click on Custom. Make sure you have Stacks clicked on both columns then go and find the spell from the dropdown list.

Suggested Raid Composition

1 Tank – 2 Healers – 7 Dps

Gear and Reforging Check

For this fight, you will need to be able to dump your mana fast enough in very little time in order to heal your raid. This boss is characterized of the huge amounts of dead time that provides to the healers, making this fight especially easy for Resto Shamans. Equip your talent tree with Telluric currents to get mana back when no healing is needed and Focused Insightto be able to amplify your healing throughput.You will mostly be stationary for the whole fight so feel free to sacrifice your ghost wolf and since no dispelling is necessary remove a point from that too. Below is an example of how your character should look like. Gear, reforging, talent tree and glyphs included.

CharDev Example with 397 gear and reforge details

Haste in this example is around 2005 in order to help you cast faster and give your riptide one more tick.

Mastery should above 18 or as close to it as possible for the extra healing it will provide you for when your raid hits all time lows.

Spirit is little above 3200 (counting the proc from Heart of Unliving ) in order to have enough to dump with your fast spells.

All items used are from Normal Dragon Soul as this is an entry level Heroic boss.

Preparation Tips and Tricks

Make sure your weapon is imbued with Earthliving Weapon enchant and your Water Shield is up .  Put Earth Shield on your tank and keep it up at all times .Start the tank so that your well spent Ancestral Healing talent points will proc that wonderful 10% damage reduction and 10% maximum health pool increase. After you see you can’t climb more on his health cast riptide on him.As long as riptide is ticking the stacks will never drop thus securing the tank an extra 10% damage reduction and health pool increase throughout all the fight.

Fight starting in 5..4..3..2..1. Pull.

Run with the tank and stand behind the boss. Drop your totems at your location.

Before the Oozes. Since nobody is getting any damage besides the tank focus on him. Renew his riptide if needed and heal him with greater healing waves or sustain him with healing waves if he doesn’t drop too low.

Casting of the Oozes. After a few seconds he will start casting for the first set of oozes. This is your major downtime where no healing whatsoever is required so as soon as the tanks health is full start casting lightning bolts to fill your mana pool back up.

Merging of the Oozes. Healing on this phase is very dependant of the combination of the oozes. There is a total of 6 possible combinations as following. Unless there is a green ooze up ALWAYS stack under the bosses bottom. No excuses if you don’t.

 —> Purple – Red – Yellow– Black

Kill Yellow to control some of the damage. With Red up you’ll need to stack and with purple up you will need to handle Deep Corruption . Below is a list of how all shaman spells and how they react to the debuff.

 —> Chain Heal – 1 stack for each person it bounces to. (Not recommended )

 —> Earthliving Procs – NO STACKS

 —> Earth Shield – NO STACKS

 —> Healing Rain – 1 stack upon entering.  If you leave and re-enter, you gain another stack.

 —> Healing Stream Totem – NO STACKS

 —> Riptide – 1 stack on initial application

 —> Spirit Link – NO STACKS

 —> Unleash Elements (Earthliving) – 1 stack

Tip. Divide your raid into 2 groups of 5 before you start the fight.This way every healer will be left with a group of 5 to heal through.

Tank assignment. Refresh Earth shield if it drops and cast riptide just a sec before the oozes merge. Unleash your weapon at a hunters or warlocks pet if you can’t afford another stack on another member. This will boost your next direct heal for 20%. Remember your mastery will boost your heals the lower the targets health is, so feel free to allow the tank to drop a little below 50% before you heal him with a greater healing wave. You only have up until 4 heals before you blow him up and the raid so it’s crucial to maximize your heals as much as possible before you heal anyone. So while keeping an eye of the tanks health Unleash life and spam the boss with any shock spell to take advantage of your Focus Insight talent that will give you an additional boost. Always heal the tank with amplified greater healing waves.Keep your tidal waves up by casting riptide on cooldown which will gradually heal members up while only giving one stack and make your next casts much faster. If anyone is in danger heal them with greater healing wave.

Raid assignment with no tank. While you don’t have the tank to heal don’t forget to refresh his earth shield if its lost. Heal the raid members as stated above and have in mind to heal the tank in case of an emergency with an instant amplified greater healing wave. You may place a healing rain down, in a 10man it will not wipe the raid but have a discussion with the other healer first.

—> Purple– Green – Black – Blue

Spread for more than 4 yards since Green is up. Handle Purple as above. With a twist. Depending if this is the first time you encounter Blue. If it’s the first time it will of course drain you of your mana.Drop mana tide totem to gain as much back as possible and if you can afford it cast lightning bolts at the boss. (If your raid uses the tact where you don’t kill the first mana void. At the second mana void your raid will kill the first so you’ll never run out of mana but in any case keep your mana tide totem for the possibility of running into a bad case of mana void. Otherwise always replenish your mana by casting lightning bolts during downtime. )

—> Green – Red – Blue – Black

Stack since Red is up. Handle Blue as above. Drop healing rain on cooldown, refresh riptides on cooldown, chain heal from the lowest and cast greater healing waves at people that are fixated from the Black adds. If someone is in big trouble spam 2 healing surges on them followed by greater healing wave.

—> Green – Yellow – Black – Red

This is the hardest combination.You should keep all your healing cooldowns for this.Start the phase by casting heroism (or anyone in the raid that can afford wasting mana on Heroism or Time warp.) Pop your Spiritwalkers Grace in you have a 4pc set bonus for the extra haste but save it for at least 10 sec into the phase. Converse with the other healer about when to drop your spirit link totem.Either start with it or drop is AS SOON as the other healers cooldown fades. Spam the boss with any shock spell on cooldown to amplify your next healing rain and keep casting chain heals in between.If anyone is low or even worse the tank use greater healing waves to patch them up.

—> Blue – Black – Purple – Yellow

Handle Blue as above. Handle Purple as above.

 —> Blue – Purple – Green – Yellow

Spead 4 yeards and handle Blue and Purple as above.

This concudes this guide for the Heroic Yor’sahj  healing showdown.  Always cast lightning bolt while Yor’sahj is casting forth the oozes. Unless there is a Green Ooze up ALWAYS stack under the boss. And in case there is purple ooze up please DO NOT use chain heal. Enjoy the fight and happy looting!

General Gearing, BiS 4.3 List and Tips : Where to start from and what to pick up down the Dragon Soul road.

I feel I have to make this post as much as to satisfy my slight OCD but also to put some things into perspective. Plus a little something for the reader  ,with the insatiable appetite, who went through my BiS 4.3 Resto Shaman Shopping List and at the end thought. WTF??? And was left wanting for more. In this post I m hoping to cover most of the combinations that would otherwise leave you wondering more time than what you’re willing to spend . Because some people would rather go to the movies rather than browse internetland for small pieces of info that when you bind together, final picture starts to make sense.  Although going to the movies is overrated. While on a first date. Best spend it in bed people. And no I don’t mean alone. Have the first date in bed. And blame it to being lazy.  Yeah…Moving on.

There was one thing I had to say when I first read the blue post on MMO Champion about how the not so secret stash of valor points vendors wouldn’t include tier set pieces. FINALLY!!!! How many people came into the new patch sporting 359 heads? Raise your hands don’t be shy. My finest example is my drood friend ( the one I continuously try to tarnish in this blog ) who after numerous raggy kills in the hunt for the head token and what was more than 30 Beth’Tilac kills for Cowl of the Clicking Menace ended up getting the middle finger from ingame RNG. Cant understand how people keep complaining of lack of sex while playing WoW since blizzard seems to continuously consummate its subscribers relationship. I want an annulment Blizz. Gief a better designed drop algorithm. However the more lewt on the table , the more we’re left wondering of how to distribute our VP most efficiently and even further down the road, how to take advantage of every little nook in order to maximize our healing throughput.

The Story so far down the loot path of Tier 13

This time around Blizzard made it very clear that some dps items would stay in the dps spectrum thus infusing them with Hit Rating as one of their secondary’s stats.So no confusion there, you simply cant choose to equip Opal of the Secret Order, Seal of the Grand Architect, Nanoprecise Cape .

• Back and Relic :

There are 2 items in the entire patch as of now you can safely spend your first VP on and that’s Woundlicker Cover and Lightning Spirit in a Bottle. So start from there. No boss drops any cloaks or relics for you , neither is a word out for a heroic version of them. Feel free to buy them, enchant them and epic gem them as well if you can afford it.

• Tier Pieces :

Probably you’ll be playing with Blizzards newest toy , LFR. Although somewhat iffy still when it comes to loot rules ( where an ench shaman can and will probably need on Timepiece of the Bronze Flight though if you do just know you’re being dicks ) , I’d suggest you’d try and get your 4 set pc bonus through there. Casual raiders or not, its worth it. When you get to upgrade your LFR items with normal versions and later heroic ones, keep in mind that mix and matching will still retain your 2 or 4 pc item set bonus. ( Of course at this point any upgrade you get will be good unless you re already equipped with 391 heroic versions from Firelands. )

• Wrists and Feet :

 When it comes to our own BOE  extravaganza , there are a set of bracers and a set of boots you can buy either in AH or using your alts or leeching of your friends. I wouldn’t suggest you waste your own VP for Bracers of the Spectral Wolf as they are very poorly itemised hence you’d have to change them as soon as possible. Try to get them if you desperately need the upgrade either with gold or using an alt. So either grab Grotesquely Writhing Bracers that drops from Zon’ozz or if you can afford it go for what is BiS for this slot Thundering Deathscale Wristguards from leatherworking Pattern: Thundering Deathscale Wristguards. The Sabatons of the Graceful Spirit are good for starters for you as are Mindstrainer Treads that drop from Yor’sahj.

• Waist :

For your waist slot you can certainly start from Belt of Ghostly Graces that randomly drops from trash in Dragon Soul. Another BoE , get that from the auction house if you can afford it. However you’ll want to change that as soon as possible with either Girdle of Shamanic Fury that you can buy from the VP vendor, or Girdle of Shattered Stone that drops from Morchok or what is BiS for you in this tier Belt of Shattered Elementium that drops from Spine of Deathwing.

• Neck :

Jelewry! For the neck slot I’d definitely suggest for you to wait for Morchoc to drop your BiS Petrified Fungal Heart since any pug group can one shot him even if you’re not in a raid group. If you find yourselves after weeks lacking this specific slot use your last VP to buy Threadlinked Chain.

• Rings :

Moving on to the rings. You can start from Band of Reconstruction if you feel like spending VP points there. However feel free to equip best in slot Ring of the Riven from Hagara and double BiS Signet of Suturing shared boss loot.

• Main Hand Weapon :

For your main hand there is no VP option. Simply wait for LFR drops and upgrade them as soon as possible with the Normal and Heroic versions. Definitely go for Maw of the Dragonlord from Madness of Deathwing especially for the fights were you stack its proc like it’s a gift from Santa. However Vagaries of Time is also great for you and so is Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony. I wouldn’t recommend using a staff no matter how good it may look on paper comparing to your say Ko’gun, Hammer of the Firelord.

How do those weapons fair up against each other though? The following list should provide with an easy solution for quick reference.

Weapon / Main Hand		iLvL	HEP
1	Maw of the Dragonlord HC	416	8,619.5
2	Vagaries of Time HC	410	7,679.5
3	Maw of the Dragonlord	403	7,660.0
4	Scapel of Unrelenting Agony HC	410	7,559.7
5	Vagaries of Time	397	6,809.9
6	Maw of the Dragonlord RF	390	6,796.5
7	Ko’gun, Hammer of the Firelord HC	397	6,784.8
8	Scapel of Unrelenting Agony	397	6,683.6
9	Vagaries of Time RF	384	6,046.1
10	Scapel of Unrelenting Agony RF	384	5,914.7

However be careful of how you utilize this list. Just because one weapon seems to give you more HEP than the other it doesn’t mean that you should just go and disenchant the one you already have. On my WoL logs I can clearly see that in Ultraxion lets say, where all my raid is stacked in front of me, my Maw of the Dragonlord is owning every single other weapon on this list. Its proc is simply devine. It will fair up from 10% to 15% of your healing depending which version you own so lets say you have Vagaries of Time normal versus the Maw of the Dragonlord RF , for Ultraxion you should go for the Maw even though its lower in the list , hands down. So check your WoL or healing Skada meters for specifics of what weapon to use and when. ( I’ve added in the list Ko’gun, Hammer of the Firelord HC for comparison to previous tier )

 Off Hand :

Since there is only one shield Timepiece of the Bronze Flight dropping from Warmaster Blackhorn , whenever it drops for you go for it. I m not recommending Ledger of Revolting Rituals for you , you’ll be stripped from half your armor and in Dragon soul where there is so much physical damage incoming its almost next to an absolute must have.

• Trinkets :

Lastly the trinket section. Vixsin from LiG5 has a great post explaining this Dragon Soul: The Final Trinket Showdown . All I have to add here is that there are 2 valor point trinkets you may equip also Bottled Wishes and Reflection of the Light if you absolutely need to replace some of yours. I wouldn’t suggest Reflection of the Light since you’ll have plenty of spirit to go already so opt for Bottled Wishes if you want to reach your second haste soft cap of 2005. But for the love of everything that is fluffy replace that with your BiS Heart of Unliving that drops from Spine of Deathwing and Windward Heart shared boss loot.

Final Conclusions :

As a final note. When it comes to replacing your 384 LFR tier pieces with 397 ones or 410 ones I’d suggest you go for Spiritwalker’s Faceguard, Spiritwalker’s Tunic, Spiritwalker’s Mantle and Spiritwalker’s Gloves .Yes its the elemental tier Hands. I know its weird. But our Spiritwalker’s Handwraps suck big time. Best if you go for Gloves of Ghostly Dreams that you can buy from the VP vendor. If you get a Imperfect Specimens 27 and 28 shoulder drop and you feel that you must, then go for our Resto hands. But…I wouldn’t. Use the LFR ones till you can make the change. Its just a waste of a token imo. Your 4pc bonus is worth it so use the LFR ones till you feel safe to make the change trying different combinations. (If you re missing pieces go for the VP ones although I wont personally. The Ghostworld Chestguard is so bad for both specs . But as always should you find yourselves sporting a 378 for a long long time, by all means feel free to exchange that )

This concludes the preliminary quick gearing list for resto shaman, so now we can immerge ourselves into the possibilities that lie ahead while progressing in Dragon Soul.

CharDev Table Analysis :

(Talents and glyphs included )

If you’ve followed my guide ( or dressed up on your own in a similar way ) then possibly you’re looking like this

• Shaman Combo 1 (Thats just one of possible early combinations).

What and how to reforge your resto shaman at this point.I’ve reforged down to match my first soft haste cap at 916 and further more using this priority . Haste -> Matery, Haste->Spirit, Crit-> Mastery, Crit->Spirit accordingly. My goal is to get my mastery above 18 and my haste rating as close as 916 as it gets. This way you get all your riptide, healing rain ,earthliving weapon to have one more tick and since you’ll be progressing you’ll want to be spirit efficient. ( However if you feel you can afford to have less spirit feel free to reforge away from items not already reforged to critical rating or mastery rating ). As of this moment I m rolling with :

•  Therya 1

(Probabilities are that at this point I’ve already upgraded my gear. This example was just a few weeks into patch 4.3 and with only few HC bosses down. If you need an updated view of my gear feel free to check  my Armory. Note to the wise.I might be sporting my DPS os gear. I love running dungeons as ele. )

My spirit is around 2700 I find that I don’t need more and my mastery is hovering at 16 while I ve chosen to hit my second haste cap of 2005. And crit is what is left. This might not be for everyone though. I’ll make a separate future post regarding differences in specs and stats in different raiding environments, group compositions and raiding difficulty progression. As it goes for me (I m currently raiding in a 10man environment) I’ll continue removing spirit as soon as I get my hands on Heart of Unliving and reforging it to mastery and crit depending on the incoming damage in my raid. I m well into Heroics right now and I find this reforging is more than sufficient. (Sidenote. I’, not promising my haste/mastery/spirit balance opinion wont change according to my needs. Let’s say if I find that for my  progression and team I m running out of spirit believe me I’ll reforge down to 916 haste cap, and give all I have to mastery and spirit instead.Do the same. Check your raid, check your mana efficiency, check your master efficiency, put those WOL logs in use or at least your skada logs. )

So what are general rules you should follow regarding reforging for different situations? Take a look at your raid and the incoming damage. If your raid is mostly below 70% best to put more into mastery than crit, if you find it to be above that, feel free to upgrade your crit. Also how far into progression are you? Are you out of mana when you need it even with Telluric Currents then up your spirit a little bit, take it out of crit or see what soft haste cap works for you 916 or 2005. However the more you get into Normal DS gear and HC the more you ll see its harder to reforge haste.

This is how a mid way into progression gear should look like:

•   Shaman Combo 2

This is after lets say farming Normals for 3 to 4 weeks and starting on first HC bosses. There is more mastery in this combination as you ll find your raid more often than not below 70%. Haste is still as close as it gets to 2005 soft cap with a glyphed riptide ticking once more. Its significant for 10 man raids. Since you’re wearing the Spine of Deathwing trinket your spirit regen will be eventually more than 3k but if you feel you need more, take a little out of your Mastery.

Lastly this is what you would call an endgame Best in slot for 4.3 Dragon Soul:

• Shaman Combo full HC

Full on HC gear with full epic gems and enchants. At this point you re probably over spirit regeneration requiremements and mastery so at 2005 soft haste cap your crit is boasting around 20%. Remove from this combination some of the amazing HC gear that you possibly don’t have and reforge some crit into mastery and you ll be laughing at Deathwing progression.

This concludes with my gearing guide about early epics and some examples for progression restoration shaman gearing. In the future I’ll go more into how to properly manage your stats for different raid enviroments and different progression and how to reforge correctly your spirit , haste and mastery accordingly. Good luck with the loot drops btw since it seems all the crappy players get all the luck. Just my observation.

___ A  Resto Shaman blog for the Curious or the Lazy Raider___