1) Pure Healing Bonus Power.

At all costs (even detrimental to other areas of your character) you should have your +Heal bonus as high as possible. All your Gems should be Teardrop Crimson Spinels regardless of colour or socket bonus and if cloth armour gives you more healing power than your plate then wear that instead, even rolling off in raids against holy priests.

Concept: The bigger the number the less spells you have to cast.
Benefit: MASSIVE healing power.
Cons: One Trick Pony, permanent group healer.

2) Spell Haste Rating.

Do everything possible to maximise your Spell Haste Rating.

Concept: The faster you can cast the less you have to cast, taking benefit of the 5 second rule.
Benefits: Very fast healing.
Cons: Lower than average healing power and you OOM very fast.

3) Spell Critical Chance.

Do everything possible to maximise your Spell Critical Chance.

Concept: The more I Healcrit the less I have to heal.
Benefits: Can cause some MASSIVE heals.
Cons: Largely dependent on random chance, causes massive threat.

4) Mana Battery (Mana Per 5 Seconds)

Do everything possible to maximise your Mana Regeneration during combat.

Concept: Perpetual Motion, everlasting healing machine.
Benefits: Very very mana efficient.
Cons: MP5 maximised at detriment to other stats such as +heal and armour. Causes MASSIVE overheal.

It was a really interesting conversation to join in with, very insightful.

One very important thing you’ve forgotten about in your guide is the possible raid saving device that Shaman’s have in their arsenal… Nature’s Swiftness.

A well placed and well aimed Nature’s Swiftness (NS) could be the difference between downing a boss and wiping the raid.

If you think about what NS actually is and how it benefits you in terms of HPS it’s a massive boost to your healing power. No other Healing class can throw out an instant heal at maximum power…

Example.

My RS, Akaora has 1900 bonus healing when fully raid buffed (at time of writing), I can healcrit for 9k with a crit chance of 18%, with Natures swiftness I have taken a 20k health tank from 10% health to FULL in 3 seconds. No other class has that kind of healing power.

When to use you Nature’s Swiftness.
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The opportune time to use NS is quite basically when large piles of excrement hit a severely over sized fan. It’s also very handy in places like Gruul beyond the 10th – 13th growth when it’s at the ZOMGWTFBBQHEALZPLOX stage. Practice with the simpler raids like Kara and 5 man Heroics to pre-empt when you will need to use it. Save it only for these times and don’t think because it’s off cooldown that it should be instantly used.

When NOT to use Nature’s Swiftness.
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Nature’s Swiftness can be a hugely overused resource and can lead to very poor and wasted healing in the wrong (read unpracticed) hands.

If you have trouble curbing your NS Trigger happy finger then macro it and call the macro “Raid Saver” or “Big Red Button” something like that.

Don’t get into the habit of using it every 3 mins (or every 2 mins 36 seconds in T4 Gear) because inevitably it will be on CD whenyou really do need it. Save it, use it wisely and you’ll learn just how powerful it is.

You should NEVER use NS as one of your first 3 heals when a tank starts a fight. It is vital that the tank can establish the agro, if you NS too soon it will cause VAST amounts of threat and strip the agro from the tank and big bad boss monster will very very quickly find a nice new target called YOU.

One of the best places I’ve found to use it is when a DPS strips agro from the tank for a second, Chain Heal the DPS then instant Chain Heal the tank (or the other way round), you’ve maximised healing on both members without breaking rythym and you’re not standing there hoping that one of your CH tails hit the DPSer on half health.

It’s also very handy in places that deal out mass damage like the first boss in Shattered Halls Heroic at 25%. He spins round with a whirlwind attack dealing nasty melee damage whilst throwing out loads of missiles hitting for about 1100 each. Chainheal -> Nature’s Swiftness -> Chain Heal is a very good combination in this scenario. Also in this scenario forget the tank, he’s just a DPSer now and a lesser one at that. your heal focus should switch to the highest ranged DPS, keep them up at all costs, use Healthstone/Heal pots on yourself instead of healing yourself.

Absolutely true But when you’re doing major raid healing on a fight like Void Reaver or ElfTrash or healing through a sporequake, you will be spamming chain heal, because there will be a lot of people taking damage.

The point I was trying to get across was not that you should randomly chain heal all the time regardless of people taking damage, but that, if you’re working on raid heal, your OH percentage will probably be higher than other classes because if you don’t get a chain heal off as fast as a flash of light – you still heal two other people.

Actually this isn’t true. Take a look at the stats taken by those on elitist jerks and you will notice that the OH on chain healing is thus:

1st Heal/hit (YOU CONTROLL THIS HIT): over 50% overheal on average

2nd & 3rd Heals/hits( you don’t control these but as they are instant this and POM are usually one of the first heals off so the OH chances are much smaller): on average 20% overheal

So where you can’t control the lower 2nd and 3rd heals/hits you will OH there for less anyways. however the first heal/hit .. you chose that and you can always mitigate your overhealing (now this is situational – sometimes you knowingly OH… prince in kara, ROS in Black temple) by down ranking, stop casting and using mods like visual heal which will show you your cast time, others as well as incoming heals and how much yours will go over.

So I agree… if you aren’t running out of mana Overhealing doesn’t matter much. However, if you are spamming chainheal… yes you will top the charts for most healed and for most OH. This isn’t skill it is button mashing.